Sirsa, January 6
As many as 10 differently abled children fell unconscious due to the cold weather while running in a sprint event during the 12th state-level annual sports meet for the hearing and speech impaired at Shaheed Bhagat Singh Stadium here today.

The two-day sporting event was organised by the Haryana Society for the Welfare of Hearing and Speech Handicapped.

The children had been standing in the open since morning. While some of them regained consciousness after their limbs were massaged, others were taken to a hospital.

Yesterday, these children were made to stand in the open for over three hours as Sirsa MP Ashok Tanwar, who had to inaugurate the event, arrived late. Medical experts said one of the reasons of syncope, the medical term for fainting, was over-exposure to extreme cold.

PS Birla, organising secretary of the Haryana Society for the Welfare of Hearing and Speech Handicapped, said the sporting event was scheduled to be held earlier last year but it had to be postponed due to a curfew in Sirsa. He said the society would hold the event in September or October in future to avoid such inconvenience to children.

Deputy Commissioner J Ganesan, who presided over the concluding ceremony later in the day today, said the authorities would provide training to the inmates of RKJ Deaf and Dumb Welfare Centre, Sirsa, under the 'Hunar Se Rozgar' scheme so that these children were absorbed in big hotels. As many as183 children participated in 15 athletics competitions. The Gurgaon team won the overall trophy.

Kurukshetra, January 6
Poor patients visiting the Civil Hospital cannot avail the benefit of free medicines under the National Rural Health Mission (NHRM) scheme at the drug store here as many doctors prescribe medicines which are available only with private chemists.

Sources say around 400 patients go to the drug store everyday but only around 50 per cent of them are able to get the prescribed medicines here. They are then left with no option but to buy costly medicines from outside the hospital. They said generic medicines of prominent companies such as Cipla, Ranbaxy, Cadila, Alderin and Wockhardt are available at the drug store but are not being prescribed by certain doctors.

Ramesh, a labourer working at Pipli, said he went to the Civil Hospital on December 27 as he was suffering from fever and itching. The doctor whom he consulted at the OPD prescribed two medicines and a lotion. However, he said, neither of the medicines were available at the hospital drug store and he had to ultimately shell out around Rs 200 to purchase them from the market. There are many like him who can not avail the benefit facilitated byt the Centre due to the indifferent attitude of certain doctors.

Director Health Services, Panchkula, Dr NK Arora confirmed that certain doctors at the hospital were not prescribing medicines available for free. He said the matter came to the fore when an inspection officer, Dr SK Mahi, had scrutinised the working of the Civil Hospital and had found out that some doctors in medicine, chest, gynaecology and pedriatics wards were prescribing medicines available only with private chemists.

Sirsa, January 6
The health authorities in Sirsa have stepped up efforts to check prenatal sex determination to curb female foeticide in the district. As many as 53 ultrasound centres here have been connected to an ultrasound tracker system, which will help the authorities keep a tab on all tests conducted in these centres.

Sirsa MP Ashok Tanwar inaugurated the control room of the tracking system in the civil surgeon office here today.

Accompanied by Deputy Commissioner J Ganesan, the MP inspected the system and got to know about its functioning.

Sitting in the control room, the health authorities can track the functioning of these ultrasound machines and the number of tests each machine has conducted on a given day.

The officials can later compare the data of the tracking system with the forms (Form F) filled in these centres for conducting tests of pregnant women. Any differences between the number of forms and the data collected in the control room will prove that some unreported tests had been conducted on these machines.

The DC said that a sum of Rs 10 lakh had been spent on the system from the Backward Region Grant Fund (BRGF) scheme of the Central government.

The ultrasound centres had to pay registration fees for installation of the system. These centres are under the scrutiny of the authorities.

In rural areas of the district, there has been some improvement in the sex ratio but the situation has rather worsened in urban areas.

The DC said the authorities had announced a cash award of Rs 20,000 to people providing crucial information about female foeticide and sex determination of foetuses.

Gurgaon, January 6
A 12-year-old girl was allegedly molested and thrashed by a 16-year-old boy and his mother in Bajghera village today. According to the police, the girl hails from Aligarh and was living on rent in the village.

The accused, son of the owner of the house, lured her to his room and allegedly tried to molest her. When the girl ran away and raised a hue and cry, the boy told his mother that the girl had tried to seduce him. Following this the boy, along with his mother, allegedly thrashed this girl who had to be rushed to a private hospital. The girl's condition is reported to have improved and the police has taken the boy into custody.

Sirsa: A local court on Saturday convicted three persons for the gang rape of a minor girl at Chaharwala village in Sirsa.

The District and Sessions Judge, Subhash Goyal, who pronounced the judgment, will announce the quantum of punishment for the three accused on Monday.

As per the police case, the three accused, Vinod, a quack, Dharam Pal, a teacher and Raj Kumar, a farmer, lured away a village minor girl when she was returning home after buying some household item from a shop on June 21, 2011.

The victim was later recovered from Hisar bus stand in an unconscious condition on June 23.

The victim narrated the incident to the police on gaining consciousness. Her parents were called and a case was registered against the three accused at Nathusari Chopta police station. 

Gurgaon, January 6
After the government fixed the number of subsidised LPG cylinders and increased in the rate new gas connections, hundreds of anganwari centres in the district and neighbouring areas finding it difficult to manage their resources.

The centres, which had recently switched over to LPG gas stoves from the traditional 'chulhas', stated that they didn't have enough funds to buy LPG cylinders round the year.

"When had we sought permission to get a gas connection, the amount for which was around Rs 4,000. But, when paperwork was completed, the rate of new connection was increased to Rs 6,000. We have written many times to the government but got no response," said a supervisor from the Mewat region.

"They allow only six LPG cylinders at the subsidised rate. We cook food for more than 100 children every day and in such conditions, six cylinders won't last even for six months. How will we pay for the remaining ones? There is no separate fund for this," said another worker from Gurgaon.

The anganwari centres have for long cooked meals for children on 'chulhas' using coal or wood as fuel and it was recently that the state authorities had asked them to switch over to LPG to ensure efficient and quick cooking.

District anganwari officials wrote a letter to the Department of Child and Women Welfare but failed to get any response so far. A similar letter had been written to the Education Department for clarification on the funds to be utilised for buying these as mid-day meal funds would not be enough.

Rohtak, January 6
The production of sugar in the two cooperative sugar mills located in the district has come to a halt, following the strike by the sugarcane growers, in protest against the inadequate MSP. Hundreds of farmers sat in dharna for the second consecutive day today, outside the mills at Rohtak and Meham, having a daily crushing capacity of around 70,000 quintals, to seek revision in the MSP.

The protesting farmers announced that they would carry on the strike till their demands were accepted. The farmers started their strike on Saturday, on a statewide call given by the Haryana unit of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU), which has taken up the demand of a proper revision in the MSP of sugarcane. The farmers have locked the main gates of the mills, resulting in complete shutdown due to no supply of cane. While the local mill had targeted to crush around 30 lakh quintals of sugarcane this season, the target of the mill at Meham had been around 20 lakh quintals.

Bir Singh, the Managing Director (MD) of Rohtak sugar mill, admitted that the production at the mill had come to a standstill. He said the crushing season had begun on November 29 last and was expected to continue till the availability of sugarcane. While the crushing target had been lowered by around 10 lakh quintals this year due to lower production, the mill had crushed about 11.25 lakh quintals of cane already.

The farmers who have been sitting in dharna outside the mills have submitted a memorandum, regarding their demand, seeking a minimum MSP equivalent or higher than the MSP given to cane growers in UP and Punjab, which was around Rs 295 per quintal. However, a spokesperson of the district unit of BKU said the farmers would not accept a rate lower than Rs 300 per quintal as the input costs of the cane growers had risen sharply over couple of years and the state government had failed to revise it in ratio to the input costs. The farmers in the state were given a rate of Rs 254 per quintal, while it should be around Rs 350 per quintal, given the hardships faced by the farmers and the margin of profit earned by the mills and the middlemen from the sale of sugar in the open market, he added.

Karnal: The farmers sat in dharna in front of the sugar mill on Karnal-Meerut Road too. They demanded a hike the MSP of sugarcane from Rs 240 per quintal to Rs 354 per quintal to save the farmers from falling into debt trap. The agitation got support from INLD and TMC.

Kurukshetra, January 6
In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the ad hoc Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (HSGPC) has sought his help in formation of a separate committee to look after the affairs of Sikh shrines in Haryana.

Addressing mediapersons after a meeting, Didar Singh Nalvi, working president of the HSGPC (ad hoc), said the attention of the Prime Minister was drawn to Section 72 (3) of the Punjab Re-organisation Act, 1966, under which it was mandatory for the Haryana Government to initiate necessary steps for the establishment of a separate gurdwara parbandhak committee.

Nalvi said they had urged the Prime Minister to direct the Haryana Chief Minister to issue an ordinance for establishment of a separate gurdwara parbandhak committee as recommended by the Chatha Committee.

Nalvi said a population of nearly 17 lakh Sikhs in Haryana overwhelmingly favoured a separate panel to manage their gurdwaras.

Nalvi said even Pakistan had established a body that enabled Sikhs to manage their places of worship in that country. He hoped that the Prime Minister would take up the issue with the Hooda government.

Hisar, January 6
The Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) will spend Rs 500 crore in the next six months on the renovation of its power distribution system. The DHBVN will set up 5,000 additional power distribution transformers to augment capacity of the power distribution system in the area falling under its jurisdiction.

A DHBVN spokesperson said officials of the power utility would organise camps in all villages to give detailed information about the "bill waiver scheme".

The officials would also send details of arrears, amount payable and amount to be waived to all consumers who were defaulters as on June 16, 2005. If they agreed to pay he principal amount of bills from June 17, 2005, in one go, the surcharge on pending bills up to June 16, 2005, would be waived .

Gurgaon , January 6
A newly married couple has sought protection from the Gurgaon police. Making this request yesterday, the couple said they were facing a threat from their families and the village panchayat opposing their marriage as both belong to the same caste and gotra.

The couple had got married 15 days ago. The police said the couple had been accommodated in the SCERT hostel. The police said Nitin (21) and Munesh Kumari(18) are residents of Budhera village.

They eloped on December 14 last year. The girl is a Class 12 student. — TNS

Kaithal, January 6
The district police has arrested two men for duping an agriculturist of Rs 40 lakh in a fake land deal. An amount of Rs 6 lakh has been recoverd from one of the accused.

The duo has been sent to a two-day police remand. A police spokesperson said Raghbir Singh, a farmer of Dusairpur village of Kaithal district, had sold his land in UP and wanted to purchase land in Faral village.

He came across accused Suresh Chand who showed him an ‘agreement’ of purchase of land, owned by a widow of Faral village, written in favour of one Mangat Ram. Suresh offered to strike a deal of that land with Raghbir.

On September 14, 2012, a ‘deal’ for the 163-kanal land was struck in favour of Raghbir through a woman ‘property dealer’ in Kurukshetra for Rs 2.40 crore and Rs 40 lakh was paid as earnest money. On October 1, Raghbir met the widow who owned the land. She revealed that she had not sold her land to anyone.

The police recovered Rs 6 lakh from Mangat Ram. The police spokeman said Suresh had confessed to having kept the money with his in-laws in UP. Efforts are on to nab the woman ‘property dealer’, Nisha Gupta of Kurukshetra, and one Dilbagh Singh.

Gurgaon, January 6
The Gurgaon police today arrested six people, thereby busting an alleged sex racket being run from a private hotel, situated on the Delhi road.

Among those arrested, four were alleged sex workers and one their alleged agent, along with the hotel manager.

The police produced them before duty magistrate court which sent them in 14 day judicial remand.

The arrested have been identified as Rekha (22), native of West Bengal, Paro (19) of Azaadpur, Delhi, Neelam (30), native of Karnataka and Parvati (20), a native of West Bengal.

According to the police, all of them were residing in Gurgaon as tenants in the area surrounding the hotel. The hotel manager has been identified as Naseem Ansari, a native of Uttar Pradesh, while the reported agent, Jumme Khan, is a native of Bharatpur in Rajasthan.

Inspector Varun Dahiya got a tip off about the alleged racket going on at Hotel Devi Palace, located near Raj cinema.

A team, led by him, posed as fake clients and busted the racket. All accused have been booked under the Immoral Trafficking Act.