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Staff of St Bede’s College stop work in protest
Anganwari worker prevents marriage of minor girl
Assembly poll: Political parties divided over dates
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Hawk-eyed ECI could play spoilsport on district issue
Shimla, July 12 The Election Commission of India’s (ECI) hawk-eyed attitude in keeping a close watch on all the announcements being made by the ruling BJP at present could prove to be a spanner in its proposal to create new districts to gain political mileage during the coming Assembly elections.
Govt to give netbooks to 4,000 students
Redraw merit list of PMT, HPU told
Online connectivity restored after 3 days
3-year-old dies of snakebite
Hydro-engineering College in Bilaspur
Total Sanitation Scheme
Resentment prevails among driving licence seekers
Embezzlement by
ex-SBI Manager
Make Kirpal Chand canal functional, say farmers
Morcha adopts common minimum programme
Minjar Fair to be polythene-free this year
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Staff of St Bede’s College stop work in protest
Shimla, July 12 It is for the first time in the history of the college, set up in 1904 to cater to the need of girl’s education in the region, that teachers have stopped teaching work since Monday in protest against the “administrative mismanagement and myopic vision” of the governing body of the institute. Having taken a decision to move court, they vow to return to classes only once a stay is obtained on the “abrupt and unjustified” move of the management to reduce their provident fund (PF) to a mere Rs 780 from the 12 per cent of their salary. “The move came as a bolt from the blue when in June a paltry sum of Rs 780 instead of the routine over Rs 10,000 was deposited in our account,” remarked Ajay Sood and KD Chandel, who are the senior-most teachers of the premiere institute with a service of 31 years. In sharp contrast to the claims of the 42 UGC-aided teachers and non-teaching staff, superior and manager of St Bede’s Educational Society Sister Lawrence termed the teachers’ action as unjustified, illegal and irrational. “The teachers were very much aware about it as it should have been enforced in 2008 itself when the Centre notification fixing PF at Rs 780 was issued, but we continued paying the enhanced PF from our own kitty, which was almost Rs 35 lakh per annum,” she said. Though the college has been in and out of trouble due to financial issues in the recent past, the latest move by teachers has left the 850 students, including 100 boarders, thoroughly confused. “We have no clue when and how this stalemate will be resolved and our parents too are very anxious. So all we can do as of now is to wait and watch,” said some boarders from Bareilly and Delhi. What is worse is that all channels of communication between teachers and the management seem to be closed with neither side willing to relent. “There is no question of a rethink or going back on the PF decision as it is strictly in adherence with the Central Government notification. When all schools and colleges across the country have accepted it, why the fuss only in St Bede’s,” remarked indignant Sister Rose, a former principal and currently Provincial, North of the Jesus and Mary Congregation. The teachers too seem hell bent on getting their legitimate right as they point out that they are governed by the HP University Statutes and not the Jesus and Mary Congregation Rules. “Even after the government fixation of grant-in-aid in 2008 at 95 per cent, the management has refused us benefits like DA, enhanced house rent and medical allowance, but we cooperated in the interest of students, parents and above all the college. But now we cannot allow our future to be marred by such an unfair decision,” they said. |
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Anganwari worker prevents marriage of minor girl
Nurpur, July 12 A few days ago she learnt about the marriage of Sapna Devi, daughter of Chaman Lal, with a native of Manjeer village of the Riyali panchayat scheduled on Wednesday. She tried to persuade the girl’s mother to stop the marriage as it was illegal. Later, she approached Sukhdeep Singh, pradhan of local panchayat, who also tried to persuade the mother but was unsuccessful. Afterwards, the anganwari worker approached the CDPO in this regard. The CDPO, Ranjit Singh, told this correspondent that he informed the Indora police about the matter. He said in the anganwari records the birth date of the minor girl had been given as October 10, 1999, and she was studying in Class X in Government Senior Secondary School at Aghar. Though the girl’s parents had claimed that she was 17-year-old, family penury had reportedly forced them to marry her off before 18. The Indora police, led by ASI Jagtar Singh, arrived in the village when the marriage party accompanying the groom was just a few yards away from the bride’s house. The police, in the presence of the local gram panchayat pradhan, the up-pradhan and anganwari workers, prevented both families from performing the “illegal marriage”. |
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Assembly poll: Political parties divided over dates
Shimla, July 12 The two main political parties, the Congress and the BJP remained divided over the timing of holding of Assembly elections. While state Congress chief Kaul Singh accompanied by CLP leader Vidya Stokes impressed on the ECI to hold poll on the same day in the entire state. They also suggested possible dates between October 20 and November 7, keeping in view convenience of all. The CPM too favoured early polls. “The holding of poll in two phases would not only cause administrative difficulties but would be a major burden on the state exchequer,” they said. They also highlighted the issue faced on account of extreme weather conditions in December in the higher reaches of Kullu, Chamba, Shimla and Mandi. The BJP, which was represented by state BJP general secretary Rajiv Bindal and HN Kashyap, state convener of the Election Cell, urged the ECI to hold poll in two phases. They favoured holding of poll in the three tribal seats of Kinnaur, Lahaul-Spiti and Bharmour around November 15 before snowfall and in the rest of the 65 Assembly segments in the third week of December. Citing the example of 2007, when elections in the tribal seat were held on November 14 and rest of the state on December 19, the BJP leaders said the weather in the lower parts of the state was normal and no problem was faced in campaigning, poll arrangements or voting. Lauding the decision of the ECI taken in 2007, they said this arrangement perfectly suited the state and everything went off fine. The CPM drew the attention of the ECI towards manipulation in electoral rolls and willful prevention from genuine voter’s names being entered especially in Shimla and places where hydel projects were located. State Secretary of the CPM, along with other leaders, including Mayor and Deputy Mayor of the Shimla Municipal Corporation Sanjay Chauhan and Tikender Panwar, respectively, also said the state government must be put under a monitoring lens to ensure free and fair elections. While favouring early poll in one phase, the CPM said any date between October 14 and November 20 would be suitable to all. Both the Congress and the CPM sought intervention of the ECI to restrain the BJP regime from creating new districts as this would affect the poll outcome. |
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Hawk-eyed ECI could play spoilsport on district issue
The two main political parties, the Opposition Congress and the CPM today lodge formal complaints before Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) V Sampat and Election Commissioner HS Brahma regarding the move by the Dhumal regime to carve out new districts with an eye on the Assembly poll. They also brought to the notice of the CEC, the decision of the state government of creating some tehsils and sub-tehsils recently. “The commission is keeping a close watch on all the announcements of the state government even now, though action will be taken only after the model code of conduct comes into effect,” said Sampat. Representatives of all political parties, the Chief Secretary, the DGP, Deputy Commissioners, Superintendents of Police, Divisional Commissioners and Inspector Generals of Police of the three ranges met the CEC. He along with Brahma made it clear that the commission would also take note of the postings and transfers of officers, especially with elections in mind. “We have received complaints that the government has appointed officers of its choice against important posts in view of elections but we will ensure that no officer associated with the holding of elections stay in one place for over three years,” he said. Sampat said directions had already been issued to the government with regard to transferring officers who had competed three years in one place. The CEC said the commission would ensure holding of free and fair poll. He said special attention would be paid towards strengthening of communication network in tribal and far-flung areas during elections to ensure smooth conduct of poll. Sampat said though the task of preparing electoral rolls in the state had been completed, the commission had decided to give another six days for the same. “As such, electoral rolls would now be finalised by July 18 and these would be published after giving
final touches on August 9,” he announced. |
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Heavy rain causes landslide, hits traffic
Shimla, July 12 The road was closed for the entire day as a precautionary measure and efforts were made to manually remove the sliding debris. Commuters, particularly school and college children, faced much inconvenience as traffic was diverted through the bypass. The road linking the high court to the Circular Road had been closed two months ago when excavations for the building project triggered off a huge landslide. The overnight rain made things worse as adjoining portions also started sinking. Meanwhile, the state received widespread heavy rain during the past 24 hours with Dharampur recording the maximum precipitation of 107 mm, followed by Kasauli (77 mm), Solan (71 mm), Paonta Sahib (60 mm), Nahan (58 mm), Renuka (57 mm), Mehre (52 mm), Rajgarh (50 mm), Berthin (47 mm), Nadaun and Kufri (40 mm each), Baldwara and Sangrah (39 mm each), Kandaghat (38 mm), Kheri (34 mm), Jubbar Hatti, Kotkhai, Ghumarwin and Jhundutta (30 mm each). In charge of the local Met office Manmohan Singh said the current spell of rain would last for another two or three days during which some mid-hill and high-hill areas could experience heavy rainfall. Widespread rain during the past week had brought down the deficiency from 75 per cent as on June 30 to 40 per cent today. |
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Govt to give netbooks to 4,000 students
Under this scheme, 4,000 meritorious students of Class XI will be provided with netbooks free of cost. They will be selected on the basis of merit in the Class X examination of the state board of school education. The Education Department decided to provide netbooks after examining all the available range of tablets, notebook and netbooks for which companies had made detailed presentations. The decision to go for netbooks was taken keeping in view the convenience of students, who had been well acquainted with the Windows Operating System and various softwares of Microsoft company and the relatively low cost. Tablets mostly use their own operating systems and other softwares with which students and teachers were not familiar. Further, netbooks are 20 to 25 per cent cheaper than tablet computers, which was quite significant. The State Electronics Development Corporation has already completed the tendering process and selected the product of Acer company that quoted the lowest rate of Rs 15,099. There were three other bidders - Hewlett Packard (Rs 16,720), HCL Technologies (Rs 18,050) and Wipro (Rs 20,656) - which quoted higher rates. The selected netbooks will have 10.1-inch LED display screen, 2 GB RAM, 320 GB hard disk, 1.6 GHz dual core processor, Wi-Fi , blue tooth, media card reader and other facilities and have a 6-cell battery with 8-hour backup. It will be pre-loaded with the course content, MS Office, other softwares, encyclopaedia and an English dictionary. The implementation of the scheme will entail an expenditure of Rs 6.40 crore. The netbook will come in handy for the poor, but meritorious students who will be able to prepare better in competitive examinations for admission to various professional engineering, management and medical courses. |
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Redraw merit list of PMT, HPU told
Shimla, July 12 The court also made it clear that it should be made sure in future that there was no question which had a confusing answer and to set only those questions that would yield only one answer. It observed that “despite various directions, certain mistakes are repeated. Human error one can understand. But, there cannot be any error on scientific standards. Utmost care should also be taken to avoid mistakes while printing question papers”. The Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice DC Chaudhary passed these orders on the petitions filed by some students who have challenged the merit list of the PMT released by the HPU on the grounds that some of the answers in the answer key are incorrect. In its previous order, the court referred some of the questions to the Moderation Committee. After going through the report of the committee, the court found the total seven questions were wrong. |
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Online connectivity restored after 3 days
Nurpur, July 12 ATMs had stopped functioning on Sunday. Customers having no alternate data circuit-cum-backup were the worst sufferers. Tilak Thakur, SDO, BSNL, Nurpur, said a major fault in the software of the Managed Leased Line Network (MLLN) was detected which had snapped online connectivity in the town. “Data cards from Kotla and Rehan were tried in the Nurpur telephone exchange which did not work, but finally the online connectivity was restored last evening,” he informed. |
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3-year-old dies of snakebite
Bilaspur, July 12 Later, as the light was restored, the family found that she had been bitten by a snake. They rushed her to the Barthin Community Health Centre, but was declared brought dead by the doctor. Villagers, led by panchayat president Kanta Devi, vice-president Ashwini Kumar, Satish, Jagdev, Ram Asra, Kishori Lal and BDC member Raj Kumar etc, have urged the district administration to provide sufficient financial help to the bereaved family. |
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Hydro-engineering College in Bilaspur
Bilaspur, July 12 The college will be a first-of-its-kind and will specially train engineers and experts for the construction of hydropower projects. Congress state executive committee member Jitender Chandel had led a deputation of Congress leaders to raise the issue of delay of this project and also regarding other demands of oustees of the Kol Dam recently. When Chandel raised the matter, Venu Gopal said delay was not from the Centre’s side as they had already cleared this project immediately, but it was from the state’s side, which had been failing in removing some objections and shortcomings suggested by experts’ committee. He said when shortcomings were removed, Central Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde would visit this district to lay the foundation stone of the project. |
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Total Sanitation Scheme
Hamirpur, July 12 The WSP team is currently visiting Mandi, Hamirpur and Kangra districts of the state, which had been adjudged among the top 10 districts in the country, under the Nirmal Gram Panchayat awards scheme by the Centre. Mathews K Mullackal, a member of the WSP team, during his visit to Hamirpur told The Tribune that “the WSP is a part of the World Bank team working in the South Asia and we are documenting best practices in promotion of rural sanitation in this region to study these models and replicate them in other areas.” He said, “Since Hamirpur district has figured among the top 10 districts in the country under this scheme we would document the success stories and study the total sanitation model adopted here and other districts of the state.” Seven states where districts have figured in the top 10 list under this scheme are: Maharashtra - three districts and one each in Meghalaya, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Haryana. The World Bank is financing many such schemes in other regions too. The World Sanitation Programme is an international resource agency administered by the World Bank, which had been providing technical assistance to the the scheme. Project officer District Rural Development Agency, Ajeet Bhardwaj said: “The WSP team today visited Dalchehda panchayat under the Bijhad block of the district and interacted with villagers to know their experiences in implementing this scheme.” |
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Resentment prevails among driving licence seekers
Kangra, July 12 Driving licence seekers can be seen for hours together in long queues outside the chamber where photographs of applicants are clicked. There are neither fans nor seating arrangements for them. Only one clerk clicks photographs and takes signatures. For learner’s licence too he conducts computerised tests single-handedly. Inquiries revealed that 6,000 registration certificates of vehicles were made recently because of new registration number plates. The burden on a single individual can be assessed by the workload as 30 to 40 learner’s licence applicants visit the office daily. Besides, at least 15 licences are renewed and 400 permanent licences issued every month. Those who stand in queues for hours together feel dejected when officials leave for lunch and the office remains closed or they are asked to visit the office the next day. The officials, on the condition of anonymity, said the workload had increased manyfold and the office strength was the same as one and half decade back. SDM Neeter Singh said the office had a sufficient staff to deal with the issuance of driving licences and added that he had not received any complaint in this regard. Licence seekers said if they started lodging complaints, they would suffer further and might not get the licence for one reason or the other. |
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Advocates’ two-day strike ends
Sundernagar, July 12 The members took out processions in the main market of the town, while advocates raised slogans against the UPA government in general and HRD Minister Kapil Sibal in particular. The DBA members, led by its president Dharam Chand Chaudhary, submitted a memorandum to the President of India through the Deputy Commissioner, Mandi, and demanded that legal education be kept outside the preview of these two Acts. It was further alleged that these Bills were being enacted to favour big corporate houses and were against the legal fraternity. Copies of the memorandum were also addressed to the Prime Minister, Chief Justice of India, Governor and Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh and ex-CM Virbhadar Singh and members of Parliament from Mandi. According to representatives of the Bar, they had made ad hoc arrangements so that litigants did not suffer and deputed proxy advocates to mark their appearance in court. Similarly, members of Subdivisional Bar Assocations of Sundernagar, Sarkaghat, Chachoit, Karsog and Jogindernagar also observed protest. |
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Embezzlement by
ex-SBI Manager
Hamirpur, July 12 The CBI team investigating “the case of fraud and misappropriation of bank funds against KS Tundakia” visited the bank here and had gathered records a few days ago. The case against the manager had been handed over to the CBI after completion of an internal probe by the Vigilance Department of the SBI. The bank management had suspended the officer after his transfer from the Hamirpur branch to Mandi a few months ago. The alleged financial irregularities amounting to over Rs 1 crore in “disbursing bank loans” were detected by officers of the bank through its own mechanism after which a Vigilance probe was undertaken. Though SBI officers had been tightlipped about the matter, they had confirmed the vigilance probe and suspension of the accused. The CBI is also reportedly going through the records of a few other branches of the SBI, where this officer had worked during the past years. The SBI authorities are maintaining complete silence over the issue, but it is being said the “irregularities detected by the SBI management were related to the opening of fictitious bank accounts to draw undue benefits given by the bank under different schemes meant for various sections of society”. The allegations also pertain to reported misuse of powers or exceeding powers by the then branch manager in regard to a few bank schemes. Sources said: “The officer had once earlier been pinpointed for allegedly committing irregularities in the bank by misusing his powers.” SP, CBI, R Upasak, said: “At present I am in Chandigarh, but records are being collected and scrutinised by the CBI team in the case and nothing much can be said at this moment.”
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Make Kirpal Chand canal functional, say farmers
Palampur, July 12 The IPH Department had discontinued the supply of water in this canal for the past few months under an excuse of “maintenance”. It may be recalled that the sowing of paddy and maize was in full swing in the area and farmers were moving from pillar to post to get water. Till date the IPH Department had initiated no steps for the restoration of the supply of water in this channel. Talking to mediapersons here yesterday, a number of farmers from lower areas of Palampur said despite the state government spending crores of rupees, they had failed to get water. They alleged that the IPH Department had closed the water channel under pressure of contractors who had been executing repair works at a number of points at a snail’s pace. They said they had visited the office of the IPH Department several times, but no one bothered to listen to their grievances. Meanwhile, Bipan Parmar, MLA from Sulah, said the matter came to his notice only now. He said he had already spoken to the XEN, IPH, Palampur, in this regard and directed him to make the Kirpal Chand Kuhal functional immediately. He said he would personally review the situation and extend full cooperation to the affected farmers. |
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Morcha adopts common minimum programme
Shimla, July 12 The morcha rejected the development model of jobless growth pursued by the BJP and the Congress, the two main political players in the state, and decided to ake job creation as the main thrust of its policies and programmes for sustained economic growth. It proposed imposition of cess on those industries which utilised local resources and exported their products out of the state to raise funds for the development of the local area. It would include cement plants. It will seek royalty to the tune of Rs 500 crore per annum from the Centre for maintaining forest cover over the hills as an environmental safeguard from which the entire coutnry benefited. The Section 118 of the Land Reforms and Tenancy Act would be enforced strictly to stop the “sale of Himachal” and labour laws implemented in letter and spirit to protect the interest of workers in the unorganised sector. Maheshwar Singh, Shyama Sharma, Rakesh Singha, Onkar Shad, Kuldeep Tanwar , Sanjay Chauhan and Tikender Panwar were among those who spoke.
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Minjar Fair to be polythene-free this year
Chamba, July 12 Taking this initiative for the first time, the administration has identified collection spots where polythene waste and garbage will be deposited and later destroyed by it. SDM Rohit Rathour, who is also the mela officer for the fair, said a taskforce comprising officials of the local civic body would be constituted to ensure that polythene waste was put in dustbins.
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Shimla, July 12
Shimla, July 12