Voters’ list revision drive launched
Dehradun, November 6
To encourage more people to enlist themselves as voters, the Uttarakhand Electoral Office has started an electoral rolls’ revision programme before the final voters’ lists are published on January 15 next year.

Haridwar, November 6
District Magistrate Sachin Kurwe and SSP Arun Mohan Joshi have given specific directions to the departments concerned to ensure a peaceful Divali. Security has been beefed up in the city and all station house officers have been directed to remain in the field and intensify night patrolling.

Checking at entry points in the district is being carried out to stop the supply of adulterated food items and illicit liquor during the festival season.

Spots in the markets for setting up stalls of firecrackers in the city have been identified. Firecrackers will be allowed to be sold only in the open space with necessary fire safety measures in place.

The SHOs have been directed to take stringent action against those found violating rules and cancel their licences immediately.

Tehsildar Shahid Hussain said firecracker sellers had been allotted spots that were at a distance from populated areas.

The open ground of Rishikul had been earmarked for sale of crackers to residents of Ranipur, Devpura, Rishikul while the mela ground of Rodi Belwala had been chosen for the purpose for the city police station area, Upper Road.

Similarly, the Pantdeep mela land in the Khadkhadi-Bhoopatwala; SD Girls Inter College and the Daksh Prajapati Maha Dev temple compound at Krishna Nagar in Kankhal, ground of Government Intermediate School in suburban Jwalapur and Peeth Bazaar, Sector 4, in the Shivalik Nagar-BHEL area, had been earmarked for the sale of firecrackers.

The Fire Department had also made it clear that all firecracker sellers would have to take mandatory clearance. A no-objection certificate from the Fire Department, proper installation of fire extinguishers, a provision of sand and water were necessary for cracker sellers.

SP, City, Kiran Lal Shah, said all SHOs had been directed to ensure strict implementation of the orders, regular inspection of markets and action against offenders.

Dehradun, November 6
The eight busy crossings of the city which have been widened under

Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission for a smooth traffic flow around them have failed to serve the purpose. These are Shimla bypass crossing, Saint Jude crossing, Dharampur crossing, Dwarika Store crossing, Vikas Bhavan crossing, Sahastardhara crossing, Tehsil crossing and Darshan Lal crossing. Traffic jams are a regular feature on these crossings.

In reality, it is the failure of the Traffic Department because of which even high-profile projects to create infrastructure and streamline the traffic system of the city falter on the ground.

In most of the cases, there is no arrangement of traffic lights on these roundabouts. Despite all the tall claims, the traffic lights have not been installed on these crossings, which pose a huge problem. The traffic personnel deputed are not sufficient in strength to regulate traffic on their own.

Even if they are stationed, they do not check the defaulters. Neither those who drive without helmets, nor the ones who indulge in overspeeding or triple riding. This is the reason people can be seen flouting traffic rules quite openly and brazenly.

It is only in matters of long jams that the traffic personnel swing into some action, that, too, belatedly. Other than that they let poor commuters struggle with each other on the roads.

Despite the parking space, people park their vehicles at free will anywhere they want. At Dharampur, Dwarika Store, Vikas Bhawan and Tehsil crossings, this problem is more severe. Owing to this, the space to drive on roads gets further constricted and gives rise to traffic jams. It is only near the district courts or the SSP's office or at the most on EC Road that the traffic vehicles can be seen towing away the vehicles wrongly parked. It can be more due to the fact that the office of the Traffic Department is situated close by and it is much easier for the traffic personnel to work within the vicinity. But beyond this, they are not seen taking action on any such offenders throughout the city.

All the traffic plans which had been introduced to streamline traffic

have proved ineffective. After a few days of launching such drives, they begin losing their effectiveness. Superintendent of Police,Traffic, Ajay Joshi, said all the new traffic plans launched to easy the traffic pressure on crossings end up into disaster due to

political interference from different quarters. He said the public started throwing tantrums after some time as they faced inconvenience due to route diversion or one way, and public representatives thronged Police Department offices to exert pressure to drop these drives.

He said it required strong political will and support from the public to make the initiatives taken by the Traffic Department effective.

Dehradun, November 6
Traders of Chakrata Road today held a meeting on the premises of the area and decided to meet the Vice-Chairman, Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority (MDDA), to give it the registry copies of the shops allotted to them in the new shopping complex on Rajpur Road.

Shopkeeper Virender Rawat said the MDDA VC RM Sundaram had assured to give them the registry of their shops on Rajpur Road within a few days but that had not happened. He said unless they got the papers, they would not be able to give the registry of their shops on Chakrata Road in PWD's name, which would allow MDDA to proceed with it's re-development plan on Chakrata Road.

However, the main intention of shopkeepers seems more towards getting the registry of new shops so that they were able to sell them off or rent out. President of the Chakrata Shopkeepers' Association, Shashi Kant Goyal, said: " There does not seem any hope that the business will boom in the new MDDA shopping complex. The shopkeepers are not keen to resume work either. So many are thinking whether to rent them out or sell them sooner or later. For that they need the registry, which the MDDA is 
not facilitating."

Another shopkeeper Yusuf said they had met junior officials in this regard but nothing happened. Hence, he said they would meet the VC in a day or two.

If the VC did not do anything in this regard, then they would close their shops once again and come on the road to protest on the issue. 

Dehradun, November 6
To encourage more people to enlist themselves as voters, the Uttarakhand Electoral Office has started an electoral rolls’ revision programme before the final voters’ lists are published on January 15 next year.

During the extended period for roll revision, the Electoral Office plans to fill gaps and compare its own data of 2011 with that of the proposed population projections for 2013.

“We need to fill visible gaps when we compare the electoral rolls with that of the projected population of 2013 in the age group of 18 years and above and the female population per 1,000 male. While our electoral rolls show 59.5 per cent of voters in the age group of 18 years and above, the projected population for 2013 pegs it at 64.84 per cent. We have to find out 5.3 per cent of voters,” said Chief Electoral Officer Sowjanya at a press conference here today.

“While the electoral rolls have pegged the female population per 1,000 male at 911, the projected population for 2013 is 963 female per 1,000 male. We are considering the difference of 53 females in the data as missing from the rolls,” said Sowjanya.

Now, according to the new programme announced by Sowjanya, the period of verification of names has been extended till November 10; special campaign dates with booth-level agents of political parties for receiving claims and objections to November 11; disposal of claims and objections till December 5; updating of the data base, merging of photographs; updating of control tables and preparation and printing of the supplementary list from December 6 to January 13 next year. Finally, the revised electoral rolls would be published on January 15. —TNS

Dehradun, November 6
A Hindi Kavi Sammelan and a classical vocal performance by Prof M Venkatesh was the spice of the ongoing Virasat festival last evening.

Famous Hindi poets like Dr Lakshmi Shankar Vajpayee and Dr Mamta Kiran from Delhi, Dr Buddhinath Mishra from Dehradun, Dr Anuradha Banerjee from Varanasi and Dr Vinod Khetan from Delhi recited their poems.

The evening began with a ‘geet’ “Jisse chaha nahi tumne kabhi vo chain paya kya…” by Dr Buddhinath Mishra. It was followed by rendition of poetic lines “Ab bhi main pedh hi banna chahungi yeh jankar ki yeh bohot khatarnak hai pedho ke liye…” by Dr Banerjee. The evening then continued with Vinod Khetan’s poetic thoughts “Pustak mele se laut kar, samundar” and yet before the poetic mood could melt away, Mamta Kiran’s expressive lines “Phone vo khushbu kaha se laega vo jo khushbu aati thi tumhari chithiyon se…” and soon the soulful programme ended with a Hindi ghazal and poem by Dr Lakshmi Shankar Vajpayee. She started with the lines “Internet se vo kare duniya bhar mein baat rehta kaun pados mein use nahi hai gyaat…”.

The last but not the least performance of the evening was a Hindustani classical vocal concert by Prof M Venkatesh Kumar. He hails from Bellary district in Karnataka. From a young age he was strongly influenced by his father, who was a renowned artiste.

He performed Raag “Maru Bihag” in “ek taal” reciting “Rasiya ho na jana re” followed by “Man mein raho more jiyara” in “dhrut teen taal”. He was accompanied by Vinod Lele from Delhi on tabla, Dharamnath Mishra from Lucknow on harmonium and Ramesh Kumar on tanpura. 

Dehradun, November 6
In a suspected case of honour killing, a man allegedly strangled his teenaged sister and shot a relative of her lover in Kheri Shikohpur village in Haridwar yesterday.

The police said: "The accused, Ishtekhar, flew into a rage and throttled his 17-year-old sister when he came to know of her affair with one Irfan.”

After throttling his sister to death, Ishtekhar went to the house of Irfan and fired at him with a country-made pistol, they said. But the bullet missed the target and hit Irfan's uncle Bhoora in the abdomen, wounding him seriously, the police said.

Ishtekhar had been arrested, they said. — PTI

Dehradun, November 6
The boxing team from Pauri district won the 12th State College Boxing Competition held in Kotdwara yesterday. Seven boxer of its boxers won the final competition.

With this concluded the competition in which 21 participants participated.

In the under-14 category, Pawan Barthwal and Himanshu Salona of Sports College, Dehradun, were selected for the national event. In the under-17 group, Arvind Kumar (Udhamsingh Nagar), Suraj Singh (Pauri), Mohan Thapa (Pauri), Vinay Kumar (Sports College), Nitin Tirikoti and Mukesh Rawat (Pauri), were selected for the national-level competition.

In the under-19 group, Rajendra Singh (Sports College), Kundal Singh Dhami (Pauri), Abhishek (Pauri), Arun Chauhan (Nainital) Sanjay Thapa (Udham Singh Nagar), Amit Kumar (Sports College) and Jitendra Singh Bora (Nainital) were selected for the national event.

Among girls, Dipika Lohia (Pithoragarh), Meena Kanwal Bageshwar), Shivani Thapa (Dehradun) and Puja Patel (Dehradun) won the final events.

Dehradun, November 6
In the Asian Challenge Basketball Tournament, Doon International School and team B of The Asian School won their respective matches here today.

In the first match, Doon International School beat The Asian School 40-31.

In the second match, The Asian School (team B) beat Jawant Modern School 27-22.

The referees for the day were Puskar Singh, Ashish Telwal and Amit Rawat.