31 candidates to try their luck in students' union poll
Dehradun, September 9
In all 31 candidates are left in the fray for various posts in the DAV (PG) College Students' Union elections. Today being the day for the withdrawal of nominations and also scrutiny, a total of two candidates withdrew their names, while the papers of two other candidates were rejected on technical grounds.

Dehradun, September 9
The work on the widening of eight main road crossings of the city has remained stalled for more than eight months. Projects for widening 16 crossings were started in 2008 with Central aid. While eight projects have been successfully completed, the remaining eight have remained neglected by officials of the concerned departments. Coordination between officials of the PWD, the Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority (MDDA) and the district administration seems to be lacking. The cases of three crossings are pending in the High Court for not being advocated effectively.

A fund of Rs 5.5 crore had been released for land acquisition, which has not been distributed till date. The eight crossings which have been widened are Shimla bypass, Sant Jude's, Dharampur, Dwarika Store, Vikas Bhavan, Sahastardhara, Tehsil and Darshan Lal.

The work on Ballupur, Niranjanpur Subji Mandi and Globe crossings has remained stalled over land acquisition. Progress over three crossings, Kanak, Astely Hall and Lensdown, has been held up in the High Court. Work on the Kargi and Kolagarh crossings is 80 per cent complete.

District Magistrate Ravinath Raman said the work on Kolagarh was almost complete, except on one side where forest land was required from the Forest Research of India (FRI) Department to widen the

crossing. The FRI has agreed to give forest land. A letter with regard to the forest land was sent to nodal officer, Forest Department, to be forwarded to the Environment and Forest Department at the Centre. But it was held up due to some shortcomings, which were being worked upon.

The issue of Globe road crossing had been quite controversial from the very start as the land is to be acquired from a prestigious school. The matter could not move forward owing to the influence of the school authority. On the other end, land from the Sahkari Samiti is also to be acquired.

The MDDA prepared a proposal to acquire land from the school on the recommendation of the PWD and sent it to the district administration for follow-up action. But the DM said the proposal was incomplete; hence, it was returned for redrafting. MDDA vice-chairman RM Sundaram said this proposal in regard to total acquisition of 3312 sq metres had already been sent to the Secretary, PWD, for funding.

For Niranjanpur Subji Mandi crossing, 1020 sq metres land is to be acquired from the opposite side of JMS Road. The total compensation amount of Rs 1.5 cr has been released by Centre, which has not been distributed as yet as officials have not yet solved the minor related problems.

In the case of the Ballupur crossing, matters have not made much headway due to lack of mutual agreement between people of Maharani Bagh and Garhi cantt over land acquisition.

On the Kargi crossing issue, Executive Engineer, PWD, CM Pandey, said people of Kargi village were not ready to lend land for the crossing's widening. A big chunk of private land was also coming in the way. These differences have not been sorted out as yet.

In the case of Kanak road crossing, land is to be acquired from Gandhi Park and Parade Ground. Trees are required to be cut down. The matter is pending in court. Similarly, for the Estely Hall crossing, land is to be acquired from Gandhi Park and a few trees are to be felled. This issue is also pending in the High Court. In the Lensdown crossing case, few shops from Tibetan market have been removed. But some bamboo trees are coming in the way, and land is yet to be acquired from Parade Ground.

The Dehradun Muncipal Corporation has shown some action and the state government, too, has moved after the Chief Secretary took a meeting of all concerned officials. Dinesh Aggarwal, state Minister for Planning, said the state government must fight all the cases related to crossings' widening strongly and actively. Former Chief Secretary Subhash Kumar spoke on the same lines, saying that the state government had a good chance to win in the court because of the public interest linked to these projects.

CM Pandey assured that the work related to land acquisition in the matter would be completed within a couple of months. Mayor Vinod Chamoli lambasted officials for not coordinating with one another and said he would talk to state government officials about land acquisition in these cases.

IT will not be a cakewalk for the ruling Congress in the Tehri Garhwal Lok Sabha by poll scheduled to be held on October 10. The byelection for the seat was necessitated following the resignation of Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna who had represented the seat since May 2009.

Chief Minister Bahuguna had to resign from his post after his entry into the state Assembly from the Sitarganj segment. It was mandatory for Bahuguna to enter the state Assembly within six months of his being elected as Chief Minister of the state after the Congress formed the government in March 2012.

The Congress made Kiran Mandal, a BJP legislator, to resign from Sitarganj paving the way for the Chief Minister to enter the state Assembly. Bahuguna won the Sitarganj byelection by a good margin in July 2012.

However, the Tehri Garhwal Lok Sabha byelection will be different from the Sitarganj assembly byelection. It will be an uphill task for the ruling Congress to win the byelection. Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna had won the Tehri Garhwal Lok Sabha seat in a byelection following the death of Manvendra Shah, the Maharaja of Tehri Garhwal who represented the seat for eight terms.

Bahuguna after many unsuccessful attempts was finally able to wrest the seat from Manujendra Shah, son of Manvendra Shah in the 2007 Lok Sabha byelection. He again won the seat in the general election in May 2009.

There are many factors that will work against the ruling Congress in the byelection. The Congress government has completed six months in office but except announcements, there is nothing much to boast about.

The state government has utterly failed to rein in the corrupt bureaucracy but has rather fallen in its trap with tainted officials calling the shots in the Congress dispensation. The natural disasters that created havoc in the areas of Uttarkashi and Tehri and brought about immense damage to life and property and the slow response of the state machinery in rescue and relief operations to the affected population will have a direct bearing on the coming poll. Since the damage to private property had been immense, despite state government announcements of relief and succour, there has been anger and disappointment among the people. This anger will be reflected in the votes against the ruling party. Otherwise, the state government will be facing the anti-incumbency factor also. There is not much that the Congress can claim of doing during the past six months of its rule in the state. The period has been marked by internal party dissensions and fights between ministers and confusion in governance.

Some of the decisions of the state government will also be going against the ruling Congress. The decision of the state Congress government to take back the Transfer Act that mainly was aimed at streamlining the transfers of employees, particularly teachers, will also go against it.

Former Chief Minister BC Khanduri had got the Transfer Act passed and the employees and teachers had expected fair transfers this year but the Congress government decided to annul the Act and was unable to do transfers fuelling resentment among employees.

To top it all, the agitation by the higher caste employees to get the court orders implemented in the reservations in promotions in government departments will also go against the ruling Congress. The constituency has a fair population of higher castes of Thakurs and Brahmins.

Ther BJP has pitted Maharani Raj Laxmi Shah, daughter-in-law of the erstwhile ruler Manvendra Shah. She is no pushover as the Tehri royal family enjoys tremendous goodwill and loyalty from the people of Tehri, particularly among the Thakur community.

She herself is from the Nepalese royal family and will be able to influence the Gorkha community having a sizeable presence in the Tehri Garhwal constituency.

If Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna manages to get the party nomination for his wife Sudha or son Saket Bahuguna, his biggest worry will be to manage internal dissensions. The detractors of the Bahuguna camp led by Union Minister of State for Agriculture, Food Processing and Parliamentary Affairs Harish Rawat and his supporters will leave no stone unturned in ensuring a defeat of a family member of Bahuguna in the crucial bypoll before the 2014 general election.

The opposition BJP has got a shot in the arm with the re-entry of Munna Singh Chauhan and his wife Madhu Chauhan who is Dehradun Zila President back into the party fold. Munna Singh Chauhan has influence in the Chakrata-Vikasnagar belt and will be helpful to the BJP in the bypoll.

The state government will face the anti-incumbency factor. There is not much that the Congress can claim of doing during the past six months of its rule in the state. The period has been marked by internal party dissensions and fights between ministers and confusion in governance. Some of the decisions of the state government will also be going against the ruling Congress. The decision of the state Congress government to take back the Transfer Act will also go against it.

The agitation by the higher caste employees to get the court orders implemented in the reservations in promotions in government departments will also go against the ruling Congress. The constituency has a fair population of higher castes of Thakurs and Brahmins. The BJP has pitted Maharani Raj Laxmi Shah, daughter-in-law of the erstwhile ruler Manvendra Shah. The Tehri royal family enjoys tremendous goodwill and loyalty from the people of Tehri, particularly among the Thakur community. 

Dehradun, September 9
The inauguration of the District Football League organised by the Devendra Singh Bisht group of the District Football Association (DFA) witnessed ugly scenes today. The anti-Bisht group in the DFA invaded the Rangers College ground and disrupted the inaugural match between Garhwal Sporting and Cantt Blues. Owing to the protest, the inaugural match was cancelled.

The anti-DFA group (Thapli group) is hosting Lala Nemi Dass Memorial League, a parallel tournament, at the ONGC ground these days. The Thapli group, led by Raju Rawat and other supporters, entered the football pitch as both teams were lining up for the opening function. The protesters refused to leave the ground despite repeated requests. DFA officials thought it wise to cancel the opening match and leave.

DFA secretary Devendra Bisht said: "The other group is organising a parallel league at the ONGC, but we never made an effort to create any trouble in conducting the games there. Today, we started our league and the other group created a ruckus."

However, accusing the DFA secretary of ignoring and paying no attention to solve the rift in the DFA, the rebel group created rowdy scenes. Despite repeated requests, the rebel groups remain adamant.

The DFA had to pay a heavy price for not involving police force in the league. Despite booking the ground for an amount which many sports associations can't afford, the DFA had to face a hindrance in conducting the matches on Sunday.

Even in 2010, the District Football League had witnessed similar scenes. To avoid any controversy, the DFA (Bisht group) had decided to shift their football league from Pavilion Grounds to Police Ground.

Dehradun, September 9
In all 31 candidates are left in the fray for various posts in the DAV (PG) College Students' Union elections. Today being the day for the withdrawal of nominations and also scrutiny, a total of two candidates withdrew their names, while the papers of two other candidates were rejected on technical grounds.

Mahesh Bhandari, who yesterday filed his nominations for the post of president, today withdrew his candidature. Now the presidential contest will be a direct fight between ABVP’s Mahesh Jagudi and NSUI’s Mohit Rawat. Similarly, Ankit Pandey withdrew his candidature from the contest to the post university representative.

Candidatures of Akash Thakur and Devendra Singh, contestants for the post vice president, were rejected after scrutiny. While Devendra Singh was found to be overage, Akash Thakur was not eligible to contest for the vice president’s post.

According Vineet Vishnoi, Deputy Election Officer, a total of 18,432 students will be exercising the adult franchise in the election, which includes 7,712 girls.

He futher disclosed that it was now all set for the polls as the college authorities had created four zones with a total number of 24 booths for the peaceful conduct of polling, slated to take place on September 12.

Dehradun, September 9
District Magistrate Ravinath Raman has warned the employees agitating on the reservation issue to be present in their respective offices by Monday or else their salaries would be deducted for being absent. He said all the employees' unions protesting in favour of or against reservation quota in promotions had decided to call off their agitation after holding talks with the state government.

Despite that many of the employees were neither joining the offices nor letting others work. Given to this, he issued strict orders, saying the day employees would not work, their salaries of that day would be deducted. He instructed heads of the departments and other higher officials to take disciplinary action against such employees.

All employees' unions protesting in favour of or against reservations in promotions had decided to call off their agitation after holding talks with the government. Despite that many of the employees were neither joining the offices nor letting others work. Given to this, i have issued strict orders.

— The District Magistrate

Dehradun, September 9
Majestic Style Creative Events Agency held an audition for the title of Mr Doon and Miss Doon here today. Organiser Paras Jaswal said he got 100 entries, of which he would select 20.

The shortlisted would thereafter be groomed with style, makeover and personality development skills. He could not audition all entries. Hence, he decided that another audition would be held at a later date.

He said this year onwards, he was recording each episode which would be telecast on a local TV channel.

"Today we recorded the audition proceedings, which will be shown on TV. Likewise, we will shoot many more episodes.,” he said.

Dehradun, September 9
The Dehradun unit of the Indian National Trade Union Youth Congress (INTUC) organised a convention here today, where problems being faced by workers in the region were discussed at length.

Inaugurating the convention, Vice-President of the state unit of the Congress Suryakant Dhasmana appreciated the INTUC for its efforts to safeguard the rights of workers both in organised and unorganised sectors.

He said INTCU members had played a key role in ensuring the return of the Congress to power in Uttarakhand.

INTUC’s youth wing president Rahul Sonkar said he would meet President of the state unit of the party Yashpal Arya and apprise him of the problems of workers. He said 70 per cent of the jobs in new industrial units being set up in the state must be given to jobless people.