Abohar
Powercom JEs to intensify stir: Giving a new dimension to their ongoing stir against the Powercom management, the Council of Junior Engineers at a meeting here on Tuesday decided to keep their mobile phones switched off after office hours. Briefing mediapersons after the meeting in the evening, circle secretary Jai Inder Maheshwari said they would keep their cell phones off from November 1 to 7 from 5 pm to 9 am. The junior engineers will also boycott labs and stores.

Chandigarh
Illegal mining: 24 cases in 24 hrs: At least 24 FIRs have been registered in the state during the past 24 hours against those indulging in illegal mining, an official press release said here on Tuesday. Anil Joshi, Industries & Commerce Minister, said the FIRs had been lodged at Amritsar (2), Pathankot (8), Batala (1), Bathinda (1), Ferozepur (2), Hoshiarpur (1), Jalandhar (2), Kapurthala (2), Ludhiana (2), Moga (2) and Fazilka (1). The total number of cases rose to 53 in the past one week.

Animal Adoption Scheme: Punjab has initiated the Animal Adoption Scheme, which will enable individuals, NGOs, corporate houses and industrialists to adopt animals in the state zoos by meeting expenses on their food, medicine and upkeep on an annual basis. Forest Minister Surjit Kumar Jayani said the department had worked out the financial modalities for such adoptions.

Fatehgarh Sahib
Rs 1,034 cr for water supply in villages: The Punjab Government will spend Rs 1,034 crore to provide potable water in 2,481 villages in the next two years. Chief Parliamentary Sectary, Rural Water Supply and Sanitation, Virsa Singh Valtoha stated this while inaugurating various development works in the district. Valtoha inaugurated a fish pond and newly built concrete streets at Firozpur village. He also inaugurated water works at Jandiali village and laid the foundation stones of various development works in the villages.

Ludhiana
Training programme: A three-week advanced training programme on "Sustainable natural resource management for ecological agriculture" concluded at the department of soil science, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), on Tuesday. The programme was held under the aegis of Centre of Advanced Faculty Training (CAFT) of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi. Participants from various ICAR institutes and state agricultural universities (representing 10 states) attended the training programme. Chief guest Dr DS Cheema, Dean, College of Agriculture and officiating Dean of Postgraduate Studies, PAU, emphasised on understanding various issues pertaining to natural resource management. Pointing out that there is a lot of stress on the entire eco-system due to ever-increasing population and quest for higher production, he said, "The efforts to meet food requirement has led to an indiscriminate use of farm inputs, thus resulting in degradation of precious natural resources including soil, air and water." Dr Cheema urged the trainees not to overlook the role of maintaining the soil health and conserving water while increasing agricultural productivity. Earlier, Dr US Sadana, head of the department of soil science, and director, CAFT, gave an overview of the training programme. Resource persons from the PAU as well as different national institutes deliberated on need-based fertiliser management, crop residues, organic wastes and bio-fertilisers, conservation technologies, agro-forestry and quality for farm sustainability.

National farm innovators meet: The Central Institute of Post Harvest Engineering and Technology (CIPHET), Ludhiana, is organising a national farm innovators meet on its campus on October 31. The event will witness farmers/entrepreneurs from across the country displaying/presenting their innovative technologies on unique platform.

Sweets samples fail test: The samples of barfi and cow milk that the health department had collected from various shops in September have failed purity test. District health officer Dr Kulwinder Singh said,"In September, we had collected 57 samples of eatables. Out of these, two have failed the test."

Contest: Punjabi Sahit Akademi will organise an inter-college Punjabi ghazal singing competition in memory of Punjabi writer Amrik Singh Pooni at the seminar hall of Punjabi Bhavan on November 2. Sufi singer Barkat Sidhu, along with Gurbhajan Gill and Sukhdev Singh Sirsa, president and general secretary of the Punjabi Sahit Akademi, respectively, will grace the occasion.

Appointed: Kiran Sahni, assistant director (national languages), National Language Coordination Committee, has taken over as member-secretary of the city unit of National Language Coordination Committee. She said under the stewardship of Chief Commissioner of Income Tax GS Randhawa, the committee had achieved greater heights. She also placed on record the contribution made by other members of the committee.