Ludhiana, September 5
The rail traffic in the region came to a complete halt on Wednesday afternoon as farmers led by of Bharti Kisan Union (Ugrahana) resorted to "rail roko" for more than three hours to press their demand for a relief package for draught-hit farmers.

Several trains were delayed by hours and thousands of passengers were inconvenienced. Railway officials said the 12919 Indore-Jammu Tawi Malwa Express and the 11057 Dadar-Amritsar Express trains were stranded at the Ludhiana railway station for more than two hours as protesters squatted at the Phillaur railway station, about 12 kms from Ludhiana.

Among the down trains, the 12920 Jammu-Indore Malwa Express was held up at the Phagwara railway station for almost two hours, the 14674 Amritsar-Darbhanga Flying Mail commenced its run from the originating point more than two hours behind schedule while the 12472 Jammu-Mumbai Hapa Express was stopped at the Jalandhar railway station for nearly 40 minutes.

As the 12497 Shan-e-Punjab and the 12029 Shatabdi Express running between New Delhi and Amritsar were detained on the outskirts of Amritsar at Manawala, the corresponding trains were also delayed for their run from Amritsar to New Delhi in the evening. Railway officials said the Shan-e-Punjab Express was running late by around two hours while the Shatabdi Express was delayed by more than 40 minutes.

Though the protest by farmers' bodies was lifted at around 4 pm, half-an-hour after the announced schedule, it would take the railway traffic some time to limp back to normal, senior officials of the Northern Railway said.

Indignant passengers aboard the trains which had to take a forced halt at the Ludhiana railway station blamed the government, the railway authorities for bowing down to the pressure tactics of protesting groups who hold thousands of passengers to ransom.

“If the farmers have some problems with the government, they should go and lay siege to the houses of the ministers concerned in the national or state capitals. Why the passengers are made to suffer and why should the Railways be targeted?" asked Kulbir Singh, a teacher who was travelling to Amritsar with his family on Dadar Express.

Activists of the BKU, the body which had led the protest along with 17 other organisations of farmers and farm workers, however, justified the agitation. "The government is indifferent to the plight of farmers who had suffered huge losses due to deficit rainfall,” a leader of the protesting group said.

If the problems were not being addressed by the government, farmers had no other choice but to resort to protest in order to make the government receptive, he added.

Ludhiana, September 5
The city’s Bharat Nagar Chowk witnessed two protests by different organisations today. Residents passing through the busy chowk had to face inconvenience as safai karamcharis and teachers blocked the traffic in protest. The safai karamcharis held a protest against the door-to-door collection of garbage from 12 noon to 1 pm and teachers held a protest against the rationalisation policy of the state education department from 4.30 pm to 5 pm.

Ludhiana, September 5
Hundreds of private garbage collectors, under the aegis of the Valmiki Samaj Bachao Aandolan, held a protest against the state government by blocking Bharat Nagar Chowk for one hour, from 12 noon to 1 pm.

Members of the Valmiki Samaj Bachao Aandolan were protesting against the door-to-door collection of garbage by a private company, A2Z Waste Management Ludhiana Ltd, from Ward numbers 68 and 69 of the city.

However, the private garbage collectors seemed divided on the issue of door-to-door lifting of garbage, which started in the city from Saturday.

One of the groups, which is close to the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) and the Bharatiya Janata Party, is claiming that some persons with vested interests are instigating the private garbage collectors for holding protests. However, the protesters allege that some persons from their own community are trying to please their political bosses.

Surinder Kalyan, chairman of the Valmiki Samaj Bachao Aandolan alleged that at a meeting held on October 31 last year, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had promised that the A2Z company would not be allowed to collect garbage.

Ludhiana, September 5
Five persons were injured when a mini-bus coming from Phillaur rammed into the road-divider and overturned on the Ludhiana-Jalandhar road near Malhotra Marriage Palace at around 1 pm.

The injured were rushed to the Civil Hospital and four of them were discharged after treatment.

The passengers said about 30-40 persons were travelling in the bus. Sardul Singh, a passenger, said the bus was being driven at a very high speed.

“When the bus reached Bhamian village, the driver rammed the bus into the divider and it overturned. The driver and conductor of the bus fled. The 108 ambulance took the injured to the Civil Hospital within a few minutes of the accident,” said Sardul Singh.

The injured were identified as Garibu Dham (64), Sandeep Kumar (19), Kuldeep Singh (19) and Ravinder Kumar (20), all residents of Chhokra village and Kulbhushan (52). While the patients were discharged after treatment, Kulbhushan, who received a head injury, is still admitted to the hospital.

SHO, Ladhowal, Gurpreet Singh said the police was looking for the owner of the bus. 

Ludhiana, September 5
Though the city police has closed about 60 road dividers in the city, impatient commuters, especially two-wheeler riders, continue to make their way through these dividers, putting theirs as well as others’ lives at risk.

Crossing the dividers is a common practice on Ferozepur Road as people avoid taking long routes to reach to their destinations. Commuters, especially two-wheeler riders, suddenly appear on the other side of the road and vehicles on the other side at times lose control.

"The other day when I was coming from the Aggar Nagar side, a person on a two-wheeler suddenly came in front of me and I was not able to understand what to do as my car was on a high speed. I immediately applied brakes to save him and myself. But it is too dangerous to cross the dividers,” said Manvinder Kaur, a commuter.

Commuters feel if the police has closed the dividers after so much struggle, they must also ensure that nobody violates rules. They must close the dividers permanently. "At some points, they have put huge stones, but commuters, for their convenience, make way from between the stones to cross the roads. They must be dealt strictly and punished for increasing the chances of road accidents,” said Vishal, another commuter. 

Ludhiana, September 5
Hospitals and clinics in the city are witnessing huge rush of patients with complaints of vomiting, nausea, diarrhoea and fever. Even as isolated cases of gastroenteritis are being reported in the city, the district health authorities are yet to wake from slumber. However, the health department officias today collected a few samples from hotels and restaurants.

Dr Anish Chopra, senior consultant, department of gastroenterology and hepatology, Christian Medical College and Hospital, said: “Cases of mild to moderate gastroenteritis are on the rise in the city from. I daily come across 70 to 80 patients suffering from gastroenteritis."

Dr Baldeep Singh, a paediatrician, said: "Hospital is full of children suffering from diarrhoea.”

When contacted, District Health Officer Dr Kulwinder Singh said: “We keep collecting samples of eatables like milk, cheese, curd etc.”

When asked as if the department had collected samples of food from any dhaba, restaurant or any other eating joint, the DHO said: “About a month ago, we collected a sample of dal from a restaurant near the Dayanand Medical College and Hospital. Today also we collected samples of eatables.” 

Ludhiana, September 5
Iqbaljeet Kaur always wanted to be a teacher but a few years back she lost her eyesight. However, she didn't lose the sight of her goal to become a teacher. She started all over again, learnt Braille and began teaching visually-impaired children at the Vocational Rehabilitation Training Centre (VRTC) here. She has been teaching at the centre since the beginning of this year and today on the occasion of Teacher's Day, she along with other teachers was honoured for the service to the visually-impaired students.

it was the day of emotions, compliments and appreciation for the teachers as well as the students as they celebrated the day here. "The relevance of teachers in life is great but their importance and the need is much more pronounced for the visually impaired," said Manjeet Kaur, a class VIII student at VRTC.

Maya Mehlawat, who is visually impaired and teaches at the centre for the last 20 years, said to teach the blind students was very challenging for her earlier but her work gave great satisfaction.

“To become educated and learn skills in life is the only hope for our survival and we owe everything to our teachers who teach and enable us to lead a respectable life ,” said Sunny Kumar, a student of a computer course at VRTC. Like them, differently abled children also celebrated Teacher’s Day and watched movie Joker at Waves Cinema. About 30 children along with their teachers from Aashirwad, an NGO, watched the movie. 

Mandi Ahmedgarh, September 5
Apart from providing an opportunity to pay gratitude to the teaching community, Teachers Day is an occasion for the families, belonging to higher socio-economic background, to win favour of teachers for their wards through expensive gifts. The gifts, which are presented to teachers, include perfumes, make-up kits, imported purses and even mobile sets. Some parents lamented that such attitude of teachers and administrators in the past was the cause of inferiority complex in their kids.

Ravinder Singh, a resident Dehlon village and father of a child who is studying in a school in Ludhiana, said, "it was really embarrassing for me when I had to convince my son that students do not present gold rings to their teachers on such occasions.”

Acknowledging the trend, Pardeep Sharda, principal of MGMN Senior Secondary School, said he had already warned his teachers against receiving any gifts. "As students come from different strata of society we had already advised the teachers not to accept any gifts from their students because it gives rise to inferiority complex among students. 

Phillaur, September 5
On a call given by 17 various farmers’ unions, hundreds of the farmers blocked rail traffic on the main Ludhiana-Jalandhar rail section, near Phillaur Railway Station today.

The agitating farmers demanded that Punjab should be declared as drought-hit state by the Central Government and adequate compensation should be given to the farmers.

Meanwhile, rail traffic remained suspended from 12.30pm to 3.30pm and the trains remained stranded for three hours, which caused much inconvenience to the commuters. — OC

Mandi Gobindgarh, September 5
“The precarious economical condition of the state needs political will and political solution and Imposition of more taxes is not the right choice at this juncture.” This was said by Manpreet Singh Badal, President, Peoples Party of Punjab, during an interacting with the mediapersons here today. He also appealed to the industry not to shift their base to other states.

He criticised the imposition of new taxes and requested the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister of the state to withdraw the recently imposed taxes. The Central Government and the state government should find a political solution for the dwindling economy, he asserted.

While talking about his party’s performance during the recent elections, he expressed satisfaction over the percentage of votes his party got in the assembly elections. “It was the maiden attempt by our party and we had to fight against the money factors, which was very much visible in the elections,” he added. He asked the people not to gauge their success in terms of seats as the party would perform better in 2017 elections.

Earlier, he was welcomed by district party chief Jagmeet Singh Sahota on the occasion. 

Ludhiana/Doraha, September 5
On a call given by the Punjab Federation of University and College Teachers Organisation (PFUCTO), a protest rally attended by teachers from private as well as government universities and colleges of Punjab was organised at the Rally Ground in Chandigarh today. Observing the Teacher’s Day as “Black Day”, around 2,500 teachers from all over the state took part in the protest against the state government's lackadaisical attitude towards the higher education and the teaching community as a whole.

As all the teachers of government and private colleges went on a mass casual leave to attend the rally, education suffered across the state.

Talking to The Tribune, Prof Jaipal Singh, general secretary, Government College Teachers' Association, said the state government had adopted a "step-motherly" behaviour towards the teachers in colleges and universities. The higher education in the state was in a total "mess", he said.

"There is no permanent Director Public Instructions to listen to the grievances of teachers. The post of principal is lying vacant in about 24 colleges, and 1,067 lecturer posts are lying vacant in different colleges of Punjab. The arrears of the teachers have still not been disbursed by the government despite a backlog of about 51 months. In such circumstances, we have been forced to observe the Teacher’s Day as a protest day,” said Prof Jaipal.

President of PFUCTO Dr Jagwant Singh said the state government had even earlier shown a "callous" attitude towards teachers. "Though 80 per cent of the total grant is given by the Central Government but the state government used it for some other purpose in the year 2000. This time, the University Grants Commission had asked the state government to give arrears to teachers, which will be disbursed later. Not a penny, however, has been given to the teachers in Punjab. Only the teachers of Punjab Agricultural University and Panjab University were able to get their arrears,” said the president.

Dr Kuldip Singh, general secretary of Punjab and Chandigarh College Teachers’ Union (PCCTU) said: "We are the only category of employees who have not been paid arrears of grade revision, which are payable from January 1, 2006 to July 31, 2009. The other state government employees have already received arrears.”

Singh said the union wanted the government to release the arrears at the earliest. The union has also demanded that the retirement age of the teachers be raised to 65 years and the ban on the recruitment of teachers be lifted.

Around 250 teachers from the Ludhiana district attended the rally in state capital.

Ludhiana, September 5
The trader community has condemned the processing fee levied by the excise and taxation department. A public notice in this regard was issued today mentioning that “every taxable person shall pay annual processing fee of Rs 800 only in October along with the filing of the quarterly return”.

The public notice further mentions that “The processing fee is in lieu of the operation, maintenance and upgradation of such facilities and services as electronic issuance of statutory forms, e-filing of returns, e-payment of taxes and such other online and offline services being rendered or proposed to be rendered by the excise and taxation department”.

Condemning the processing fee levied by the department, Mukesh Aggarwal, a businessman, said, “On one side, we are maintaining our records and giving salary to accountants and on the other side, now, we have to give fee to the department as well. This is an unnecessary burden on the traders,” he added.

“If the department is going online, it should bear the burden on its own. In fact, the department should also provide “maintenance fee” to the traders as they are also using infrastructure and manpower for maintaining their records and doing online filing,” added another trader Harpal Singh.Another exporter, Surinder Kalra, said the department was going overboard in levying taxes and now processing fee had been imposed on them. “ The government is giving salaries to the staff and also providing them infrastructure. They cannot charge us for the work done by them and for the maintenance of the machinery. It is not a matter of Rs 800, but it is purely wrong to charge processing fee from the traders when the government is providing them with salaries,” he rued.

Ludhiana, September 5
Punjab rural development officials who went on mass leave to press upon the rural development and panchayat minister to shift the department’s director for misusing his official powers have suspended their strike after assurance by the minister.

The offices were empty as the officials had gone to Mohali to stage a protest and those coming to get their works done had nobody to attend them.

The decision to go on mass leave was taken yesterday at a meeting of the Punjab Rural Development Officers Association against Balwinder Singh Multani, the department's director, for misusing his official powers.

"We have suspended the strike on the assurance given by rural development and panchayat minister Surjeet Singh Rakhra. We will be resuming our work while the decision on shifting our department's director is pending," said Amardeep Singh Bains, DDPO, Ludhiana.

Meanwhile, Sukhdev Singh from a nearby village, who came to meet the block development panchayat office, was unhappy to see the office empty. “I had come to enquire about the grants that are to be given to our village for constructing drains, but there is no one to attend to me at the office I waited for a long time, but noone turned up,” he added.

Ludhiana, September 5
Even after a year it was reopened on the premises of Lord Mahavir Civil Hospital, Ludhiana, the Jan Aushadhi store, which provides medicines to poor and needy patients on subsidised rates, has been facing shortage of medicines. Last year, the store reopened on September 5.

Dr AK Handa, Deputy Medical Commissioner, Ludhiana, said, "Throughout the year, the store has provided medicines to the poor and needy patients on subsidised rates. We require as many as 219 types of drugs here, which are provided to us by five pharmaceutical firms approved by the Centre Public Service Undertaking. As there is more demand and less supply, so we keep writing to the stockists of these firms to give us regular supply of medicines. But it is ironical that we are yet to receive a complete list of medicines."

A list of 34 medicines was sent to these firms in April, but only 13 were supplied.

The store was launched with much fanfare in November 2008 for the sale of generic medicines in government hospitals under the Centrally sponsored scheme, but it proved to be a damp squib, due to the non-availability of a large variety of medicines for several diseases.Not only this, there were complaints of overcharging and passing off certain branded medicines at the stores, which provided a higher margin of profit, with the result the store was closed down over a year ago. It was on September 5, last year that it was reopened by the Rogi Kalyan Samiti.

Medicines that face shortage of supply

Cefixime

Ciplox Cotrimoxazole

Albandazole

Ampiciline etc.

Ciplox eye drops

Diclo-para, Levocetrizine,

Ludhiana, September 5
Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) President Capt Amarinder Singh will be in the city to attend a protest against the government on September 7. 

Ludhiana, September 5
Upkar Singh Ahuja, joint secretary, Chamber of Industrial and Commercial Undertakings, and group managing director, New Swan Group of Industries, Ludhiana, has won the Bronze Trophy for Excellence in Quality and Productivity and Certificate of recognition in Excellence in Technology in the SME Category for 2012-13 for second time in a row.

He received the award from Paful Patel, Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, during the 52nd Annual ACMA Awards function held today at New Delhi. Inderjit Singh Pardhan, president of CICU and chairman the Small Scale Industry Development Board, Punjab, congratulated him and appreciated his support, role and contribution to the SME Sector.

Ludhiana, September 5
A married woman, Neetu (name changed), reportedly committed suicide by hanging herself with the ceiling following "harassment" by her in-laws. The Basti Jodhewal police has registered a case against four persons on the basis of complaint filed by Neetu's brother Bablu Bhandari.

In his complaint to the police, Bablu alleged that his sister got married to Mukesh Bedi from Kailash Nagar on March 29, 2012. Right after the marriage, her in-laws, including the husband, started torturing her for not bringing enough dowry.

"Yesterday, my sister got fed up due to the regular torture and harassment by her in-laws and committed suicide by hanging herself with the ceiling. The in-laws took the body her to the CMC and called us. But when we reached the hospital, we found nobody from the in-laws' family. They have killed my sister,” said Bablu Bhandari.

Balwinder Singh, SHO, Basti Jodhewal, said a case under Sections 304 and 120-B of the IPC had been registered against four persons, including Neetu's husband Mukesh Bedi, mother-in-law Veena, Rinku Bedi and Anu Bedi, all residents of Gagandeep Colony, Kailash Nagar Road. 

Ludhiana, September 5
Thanks to superb bowling by Baltej Singh and Rahul Singla, Ludhiana restricted Jalandhar to 268 runs to gain vital 20-runs lead in the first innings on the penultimate day of the four-day match in the Punjab State Inter-District Cricket Tournament for the Katoch Shield being played at the Punjab Agricultural University ground here today.

Ludhiana made 288 runs in their first essay and defended the score well to contain the visitors. Baltej chipped in with six wickets while Rahul claimed two wickets to help their side to earn the first innings' lead.

Resuming at overnight score of 12 for no loss, Jalandhar were cruising along well (190 for 5) and it seemed that they would manage to overhaul Ludhiana's total of 288 runs. The pair of Ishan Malhotra and Sarabjit were in their true elements as they took the host bowlers to task.

The moment, the partnership between these two batsmen was broken, Ludhiana got the upper hand and eventually succeeded in wrapping up the visitors' innings at 268 runs.

The valiant knocks by Ishaan (54) and Sarabjit (38) and another useful partnership between Yogesh (33) and Gurkirat (21) went in vain as Jalandhar failed to surpass the host’s score.

Enjoying the lead, though by a small margin, Ludhiana began their second innings on a strong note posting 63 runs on the board without losing a wicket.

Brief scores

Ludhiana (first innings): 288 all out in 105.5 overs ( Nitin Goel 13, Ashish 17, Bharat Malhotra 13, Karan Goel 32, Akhil Aggarwal 23, Geetansh Khera 67 and Himanshu 60; Subheg Gill 1 for 40, Yogesh 2 for 75, Gurkirat 1 for 39, Ishan Malhotra 3 for 48and Taruwar 2 for 27).

Jalandhar (first innings): 268 all out in 78.2 overs ( Robin 23, Pargat Singh 34, Taruwar Kohli 14, Abhishek Gupta 15, Satawaan 32, Sarabjit 38, Ishaan Malhotra 54, Yogesh 33, Gurkirat 21, Baltej Singh 6 for 82, Rahul Singla 2 for 42, Sukhjinder 1 for 54 and Karan Goel 1 for 47).

Ludhiana (Second Innings): 63 for no loss ( Nitin Goel 32 n.o and Ashish Kumar 27 n.o)