Amritsar, December 9
Surinder Kumar, a resident of Pishorian Mohalla, tried to commit suicide by immolating himself at the busy Hall Gate chowk here today. Eyewitnesses said he poured kerosene which he had brought and set himself on fire.

Prompt action by the onlookers saved him. They poured water and doused the fire with the help of a jute bag. He was taken to the Guru Nanak Dev Hospital on an ambulance. Doctors attending on him said Surinder sustained 50 per cent burn injuries and was out of danger.

Rajesh, a shopkeeper in the Hall Gate area, said he saw a person pouring something on himself. “Before I could understand anything, he lighted a matchstick and set himself on fire. The people from adjoining shops rushed to towards the man and tried to douse the fire,” he said.

“I was just getting my shoe polished at a corner shop when I heard the cries. When I turned, I saw a person engulfed in flames. With the timely help of people around he was saved,” said another eyewitness.

When the people gathered around him and asked why he took the step, he said, “I have lost my mental balance.”

“Please save me and take me to the hospital,” he pleaded to policemen who rushed him to the hospital. Surinder’s family had not visited the hospital till the filing of report.

Though a police chowki is located on the main Hall Gate chowk, policemen did not see him taking the extreme step.

HS Brar, ADCP Crime, who reached the hospital, said the victim was identified with the help of a voter ID card found in his pocket.

“At present he was not in the right frame of mind and was not fit for giving any statement,” said Brar.

The police has informed the family members of Surinder Kumar. He said the police was looking into the reason behind the immolation bid.

Amritsar, December 9
Industrialists and manufacturers feel that even though the PHD Chamber has made elaborate efforts to attract foreign traders at the ongoing Punjab International Trade Expo, but it needs to explore business to business approach and liaison with importers and exporters.

PL Seth, a city-based shawl manufacturer and exporter, said there was a need to broaden the scope of PITEX, which has become an annual edition, from ‘businessmen to consumers’ to ‘businessmen to businessmen’.

“Keeping in view the public response, the Punjab International Trade Expo is a hit, but there is a need to broaden its sphere,” he quipped.

He suggested that the organisers must carry out a study to identify the importers from the participating countries in the PITEX and invite them to take part in the next edition. Besides, export promotion councils, constituted by the Union Government, could be contacted to identify the importers and exporters.

He said in order to achieve this, the PHD officials would have to put in extra efforts to inculcate links with manufacturers and whole sellers of interested participating countries. He said only this would ensure bulk sale and long standing trade partnership.

Visits to the PITEX unfolded that majority of the visitors at stalls are retailers who came with families for an outing, said Rajesh Mahajan, operating a printing and packaging unit locally.

He said couple of his counterparts from Ludhiana also came down especially to participate in the PITEX, but were discouraged to find unavailability of a separate felicitation centre for importers and exporters.

He said there was a need to reserve some hours daily for businessmen to businessmen dealing.

Various industries of Amritsar may not have directly benefited from the five-day PITEX, but its indirect benefits could be immense in the times to come, felt many leading city industrialists.

A leading industrialist, Kamal Dalmia said seminars on trade opportunities in Africa and stalls by various south Asian countries educated a large section of the city’s industrialists regarding a host of opportunities to grow. He said, “The real success could not be ascertained as long as manufacturers and whole sellers do not sit across the table to thrash out a constant trade link”.

The owner of an export-oriented pharmaceutical unit, Raman Gupta, said going by the name, the international trade fair must be focused on the local industry in general and the region in particular. For instance, there are about 10,000 units of engineering goods and 45 of pharmaceuticals in the region. He said there were many cities in the world where economy rest on trade fairs as these were vital platforms for convergence of traders and manufacturers.

RS Sachdeva, Co-Chairman, PHD Chamber Punjab Committee, said we had focusing on all these points. “The next edition of PITEX will see more industry specific and cluster targeted exhibition.”

He said even at this edition, many associations of local industries took part in the fair after they were contacted. He said importers and exporters of the participating countries would also be contacted to facilitate the trade. 

Amritsar, December 9
Continuing their hunger strike for the fourth day, the safai karamcharis whose services were terminated served another ultimatum of 72 hours to the Guru Nanak Dev University to roll back the decision.

As many as 55 safai karamcharis, who were engaged on a daily wage basis by the GNDU, were shunted after the university opted to outsource the cleanliness work to an Abohar-based firm.

A few days back after the workers were laid off, they had served a 24-hour ultimatum to the GNDU authorities to take them back or face protests. But the authorities did not pay heed to the ultimatum.

The workers were aggrieved lot as the authorities had refused to listen to them. It has been learnt that condition of two workers, including a woman, has been deteriorating with each passing day.

Though Dr Rajkumar Verka, Vice-Chairman, National Commission for Scheduled Castes, had intervened in the matter terming it an unjustified step, the university authorities have refused to reconsider the matter.

Showing solidarity with the affected safai karamcharis, Dr Verka had said the university should not have terminated the services of safai karamcharis who have been performing duties for over 10 years.

On the other hand, Vice Chancellor Prof AS Brar maintained that since they were only daily waged workers and not permanent employees, the university is not liable to take them back.

Partap Singh, one of the affected workers and president of the Mazdoor Union, said despite repeated attempts, the university authorities were not even ready to listen to their grievances.

“The condition of two of our colleagues Baldev Singh (45) and Gyan Kaur (55), who have been associated with the university for the past over 10 years, has been deteriorating.

“If something bad happens, the university will be totally responsible,” he said. “We have served 72-hour ultimatum to the university authorities for reinstating our services, otherwise which we will intensify our agitation from Wednesday onwards.”

Amritsar, December 9
A delegation under the guidance of SGPC Chief Avtar Singh Makkar will be visiting the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand in connection with issue of reconstructing Gurdwara Godri Sahib located at Haridwar.

The gurdwara was demolished during the November 1984 Sikh carnage. The Sikhs demanded that this place should be handed over to them so that a new gurdwara could be reconstructed at the original site. — TNS

Amritsar, December 9
Concerned over the unsanitary conditions prevailing in the main vegetable market at Vallah, a local NGO has approached the Punjab Pollution Control Board to take notice of the problem.

In a letter addressed to Senior Environment Engineer of the PPCB, general secretary of Mission Aagaaz Gurbej Singh said a team had conducted a survey at the market only to find that the mandi has turned into 101 acres of dustbin.

Even though there is a ban on the use of plastic, the mandi sees no dearth of plastic glasses used by vendors to sell tea. After their use, these glasses are not collected as a result of which crushed glasses lay scattered all over 101 acres of the land.

As plastic obstructs the water flow, it is causing a serious damage to the environment, said Gurbej.

There is no provision of dustbins anywhere. The area is full of garbage, which is lifted at will by the service provider. For this huge area, there is only one trolley and few workers to lift the garbage. Stink gets worst in the rainy season.

“There is abundance of dust everywhere; and tractors trolleys make it worst as there are hardly any roads. There are huge pits full of garbage and stagnant water, breeding mosquitoes. The workers and employees of vegetable vendors suffer from chest problems, asthma, allergies and other diseases. Such filthy conditions certainly affects the quality of vegetables which are consumed by residents of the city”, said Deepak Babba, another activist of Mission Aaagaz.

Whereas there are Solid Waste Management rules framed by the Punjab Pollution Control Board, the Mandi Board is ignorant of the rules and waste is not being segregated before its lifting and disposal.

There is no green cover in the area, nor there any effort to grow trees to minimise effects of dust and smoke.

Pramjit Singh Judge, Tejinder Singh Kamboj and Vinayak Sachdeva, chairman, president and general secretary of the Vegetable Mandi Association, respectively, said though the Amritsar Mandi Board collects crores of rupees as market fee, it spends only a fraction on the welfare of the area. They further said their efforts to bring these problems to the notice of all authorities concerned have not yielded results. 

Amritsar, December 9
In the semifinals of the ONGC All India Maharaja Ranjit Singh Junior Gold Hockey Cup, Western Railways girls’ team defeated Guru Nanak Dev University by 11-3.

In the second semifinal, the Rail Coach factory, Kapurthala, and CentralRailway team failed to score any goal against each other and the match ended in a draw. Western Railway and Rail Coach Factory team will be playing the final match tomorrow.In the boys’ section, in the semifinal match, Baba Utam Singh Hockey Academy, Khadoor Sahib, was defeated by Chandigarh Academy by 4-2. The team of Guru Gobind Singh Vidya Mandir, Ratwara Sahib, Mohali, defeated PNB Academy in the second semifinal by 3-1 and managed to reach finals. The Chandigarh Academy and Guru Gobind Singh Vidya Mandir will be playing the final match tomorrow.

Amritsar, December 9
On the concluding day of the head and neck cancer surgery workshop, the delegates stressed on the need for continued efforts to make this field a specialised sphere with due recognition.

Around 14 experts of the field expressed their views in this regard today at the conference organised by Amandeep Hospital here.

Dr Avtar Singh, director of hospital, said: “There are very few trained head and neck cancer surgeons available due to the lack of proper training in the region and the demanding nature of this field. As long hours around 8 to 12 hours are spent in such surgeries.”

Prominent among the others who attended the workshop included Dr Ravi K Mahajan, Dr Prahlad Duggal, Dr Aishwarya Mehra, Dr Amit Dhawan, Dr Pankaj Soni, Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, Dr Parthamesh Pai, Dr PS Yadav, Dr Deepa Nair, Dr Ashok M Shenoy, Dr RK Karwasra and Dr S Iyer (Kochi).

In a series of keynote addresses and other lectures on ‘head and neck cancer surgery’ various aspects of skull based surgery and thyroid cancer were also discussed.

Dr Ashok Shenoy from Bangalore gave a detailed lecture on the cancer of larynx (voice box) and various types of operations to treat it. “Smoking is a major factor in the development of this cancer and many a time the patient loses his natural voice for ever after this surgery which is life saving,” he said.

Dr Rajiv Ahuja gave a lecture on advanced state of the art techniques in the reconstruction after head and neck cancer surgeries.

Dr Vivek Gupta gave a lecture on the role of interventional radiology in head and neck cancers.

Amritsar, December 9
The second day of the 10-day National Theatre Festival in Amritsar was about the Partition and its wreckage, a time when humanity suffered on both sides of the 
border.

Lighting up the stage

Artistes during a play ‘Karmawaali’ at Punjab Natshala on Day 2 of National Theatre Festival in Amritsar on Sunday. photo: sameer sehgal

Karmawaali or The Lucky Lady, a play based on an Urdu novel of the same name written by renowned writer Kashmiri Lal Zakir, was staged by the group from the theatre and television department, Punjabi University, Patiala.

Directed by Sunita Dheer, a noted actor and theatre personality, and Gurcharan Singh, the play centred on a woman named Karmawaali, who gets separated from her son during the Partition.

“The story is inspired from a real-life incident and the son still lives near Ropar. The conflict and the situation portrayed on the play is not just about a woman, but a family forced apart during the Partition,” shares Suneeta Dheer, the director of the play.

The play is quite noted in Indian theatre as it has been re-enacted in various interpretations by many noted theatre groups. The National School of Drama, New Delhi, had adapted the award winning novel, Karmawaali, into a full length play and had staged it about hundred times throughout India. But the universality remains, the pathos of a mother- son living on both sides of the border of Hindustan and Pakistan- having their sealed destinies with the unwarranted partition of the country- the twain of tears destined never to meet again!

“I have interpreted the play through two Karmawaalis – a narrator and a stage character. The two bring in a spontaneous emotion to the story and symbolise the inner and outer personalities of the protagonist,” says Dheer.

With an ensemble cast of over 45 members, it was the only play to have so many actors performing at the ongoing festival.

Delicate emotional moments were a highlight with the depiction of the Partition era, refugee camps, accounts of migration, and the highs and lows of the time.

“It’s a very sensitive story and so the emotions have been kept raw. The character goes through turmoil with a brave face, whether it’s leaving her home, crossing the border or deciding to leave her son knowing that she will never be able to meet him again. Though kept subtle, but Karmawaali represents the women of that time who had to suffer the most due to the Partition and blowing away the feminine modesty of mannerisms,” explains Dheer.