Chandigarh, April 27
The fire and emergency services wing of the Municipal Corporation has rapped the authorities at the Punjab Mini-Secretariat for lack of fire safety measures in the building.

In a four-page report on the recent fire incident, the fire wing has highlighted various lapses in fire safety arrangements in the building.

Sample this: Room no. 727 (court record branch, OSD examination and state inquiry office) on the seventh floor is without an automatic fire detection/alarm system.

It has been mentioned in the report: “The automatic detection/alarm system installed in the corridor and the other offices on the seventh floor was also found non-functional. There are temporary electricity connections and loose electrical wires, which can cause fire due to a short-circuit”.

Fire safety violations were aplenty not only on the seventh floor, where a fire had broken out on March 17, but also on the other floors and in the basement.

It has also been mentioned in the report that a majority of escape route/gates in the building were found permanently locked. The fire control room on the ground floor was found without trained staff as well as fire-fighting equipment. The alarm system installed in the room no. 404 to 409, 415, 424 and 427 on the fourth floor was found to be out of order, according to the report, which has been submitted to the Punjab Government.

Chandigarh, April 27
The death of an infant at the PGI four days ago and the subsequent ban on the sale of the Easy Five vaccine, which was administered to the infant before his death, has led to panic among parents.

While certain parents said they never paid attention to the vaccines being recommended by the doctors and purchasing them from chemists, others said they were perplexed and didn't know whom to trust.

Traumatised, the father of the infant who died recently at the PGI, Subhash, said he would prefer not to take his other baby for further vaccination no matter how crucial experts consider it to be.

“This incident has made me realise my foolishness in blindly believing into what doctors recommend and chemists sell. I had never bothered to even see which were the three vaccines my child was given in the last six months. I also thank the Almighty that my child is safe despite my carelessness. I will have to be very cautious before any further vaccination,” Kamal, a marketing executive, who came to the PGI today for the check up of his six-month-old baby.

Jasveer Singh, a Sangrur resident, who took his four-month-old daughter to the Advanced Paediatrics Centre at the PGI for consultation, shared his perplexity over the loss of faith in everyone. “I do not know whom to believe. While we find it important to follow doctors' instructions since we want our baby to be free from all kind of problems, a commonly used vaccine has been banned due to the baby’s death. There must be some problem with the vaccine that is why the government has banned it.

But, can anyone compensate for the loss of the family?” he said.

Following the death of the six-week-old baby on Tuesday morning, 16 hours after he was given the Easy Five vaccine for protection against five common diseases, the UT Health Department had banned the vaccine. 

Chandigarh, April 27
Taking cognisance of serving stale bread sticks to passengers on board the New Delhi-Chandigarh Shatabdi yesterday, Union Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal has ordered an enquiry into the matter. While talking to media persons here today, Bansal said action would be taken against erring persons. He said the railway authorities had been working towards improving the quality of food served on trains.

Chandigarh, April 27
Making a mockery of the examination system, Panjab University made another blunder today. The question paper of Punjabi (BA-III) turned out to be exactly the same as that of 2012. This is the second time that the university has committed this error. Earlier, the mathematics paper of BA and BSc, which was held on April 17, had been repeated.

The error was brought to the notice of the PU authorities by Senate member Raghbir Dyal during a special Senate meeting held at the PU.

Interestingly, all the questions were in the same order as they were in the question paper of 2012. Thousands of students of the PU-affiliated colleges are in a fix over the error committed by the PU as they might have to re-appear for the exam.

Controller of Examination (CoE) Parvinder Singh said the department was investigating the matter and necessary action would be taken.

“The university has worked out some remedial measures to prevent such errors and these will be implemented soon,” he added.

The mathematics paper-B on differential equations of BA, BSc (second year) was exactly the same as attempted by the mathematics students in 2012.

Dyal said the university needed to put its house in order as repeated mistakes by the examination branch had exposed the negligent attitude of the university authorities. “There have been instances of photocopies of handwritten question papers being given to students at examination centres or less question papers found in packets,” he said.

Chandigarh, April 27
Imagine a Sanskrit teacher teaching maths in Vedic shalokas or his tongue stuttering with English words! This is precisely going to happen in government schools across the city, courtesy the UT Education Department’s recent promotion of 187 trained graduate teachers (TGTs) as lecturers.

Sandeep Joshi

Sample this: Two Sanskrit teachers have got promotions as English lecturers and another two as mathematics and economics lecturers. A physical education teacher will teach economics now. Four home science teachers will now teach English. A Punjabi teacher has been promoted as a sociology lecturer, a social studies teacher as a Hindi lecturer and a Hindi teacher as an economics lecturer.

Besides, five science teachers have been promoted as English lecturers and a science teacher as a political science lecturer.

Technically speaking, the promotion has been done well within the framework of the Chandigarh Education Service (school cadre) Recruitment Rules, 1991. All these teachers possess a master’s degree in their subjects which they are going to teach. It is the only prerequisite for the promotion to lectureship under the recruitment rules.

However, the local academia has doubts when it comes to the teachers’ performance in classrooms.

A senior official said: “The first six-seven months are going to be difficult for these teachers as they are completely out of touch with the subjects and many are not even aware of the basic changes in their subjects. Practically speaking, a Class IX or a Class X teacher should have been promoted for senior classes in the same academic framework. The promotion rules are, however, laid down otherwise,” he said.

A school head questioned: “How can a physical education teacher who is promoted as an economics lecturer will do justice to the students? Just because he has a relevant degree does not make him a good teacher in the subject.”

Another school head said the quality would suffer with the recent promotions. “The continuous guidance for them is important unless it will take a toll on the student’s performance in the crucial stage of their career,” he added.

“Experience matters in teaching higher classes which should have been made one of the criteria for promotions, said Dr Rakesh Sachdeva, principal, DAV-15. DPI (S) Upkar Singh said the promotion was done in accordance with the recruitment rules. Moreover, the department has already started a subject-wise training programme for the newly promoted teachers, he said.

Mohali, April 27
MLA Balbir Singh Sidhu has sought exclusion of 23 areas from the purview of the upcoming panchayat, block samiti and zila parishad poll, saying these were expected to be included in the long-pending Mohali Municipal Corporation elections.

The legislator has written a letter to Minister for Rural Development and Panchayats Surjit Singh Rakhra urging that Raipur, Badh Majra, Badh Majra Colony, Daun, Green Enclave, Ballo Majra, Balongi, Balongi Colony, Balyali, Lakhnaur, Sohana, Nanu Majra, Patti Sohana, Mauli Baidwan, Kumbra, Raipur Khurd, Chilla, Manauli, Pappri, Chachu Majra, Kambala, Kambali and Jagatpura be excluded from the panchayat, block samiti and zila parishad elections.

He said the elections to the Mohali civic body were pending for more than two years.

Sidhu said if the areas were included in the panchayat, block samiti and zila parishad elections, the candidates would have to unnecessarily spend time, funds and energy in contesting the poll.

Besides, he said, the government would have to make all arrangements for holding free and fair elections. The whole exercise, he said, would prove futile if, after the issuance of the relevant notification, these areas were included in the Mohali Corporation elections.

Chandigarh, April 27
A PGI doctor has been honoured with the Best of the Best Award for designing a special intraocular lens which was safely placed in a child born with two lenses in his right eye, with each lens located in corners.

Dr Jagat Ram

Dr Jagat Ram, professor, Advanced Eye Centre, received the award in the category of New Techniques for Surgical Video in Ophthalmology at the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery Conference held at San Francisco.

The chairman of the jury, Dr Spencer Thornton, while presenting the award described this new technique as a miracle in the field of ophthalmology. This technique has opened a new option for the management of difficult cases of cataract in children, he said.

In addition to designing the special lens which was placed in the eye of a 4-month old baby, Dr Jagat successfully removed the two lenses from the child’s eye before placing the customised one in the eye.

“The two natural lenses in the child, who is now two-year old, were falling in two directions with none of them being at the centre. The child could not focus on anything, suffering loss of vision,” said Dr Jagat.

“The surgery took around 35 to 40 minutes and the customised lens, relatively bigger in size than any normal lens, was placed in the child’s eye,” he added.

The lens was provided by the manufacturing company free of cost since it was a pioneering surgery. The estimated cost of the lens is Rs 15 lakh.

Over 120 countries participated in the conference. This award is the most prestigious one for ophthalmologists across the globe, as any new innovation in the surgical techniques is the basis for selecting videos to be presented for consideration of this award.

Chandigarh, April 27
What is the point of setting up an Income-Tax Ombudsman for the redressal of income tax payers’ grievances when it is toothless and unable to take any action against the negligent officials?

Income Tax Ombudsman, North-Western Region, Ashok Manchanda, while addressing the media persons, raised this question. He said other than making a request to the I-T officials to speed up the cases of aggrieved persons, the Ombudsman was not empowered to take any stringent action against them.

He said many cases regarding the delay in refund due to missing records were pending for the past 10 years. Manchanda said a total of around 375 grievance cases related to income tax were lying pending with his wing. Of these, over 70 per cent cases pertained to the delay in refund to tax payers, he said. As many as 50 cases were received every month, he said.

Manchanda said although there was no deadline to resolve these cases, his wing was trying to do the needful within one to four months, depending on the availability of records.

He said in order to file an online complaint, the affected parties must send a hard copy with their signatures after having sent an e-mail.

Mohali, April 27
High drama was witnessed when the siren of a branch office of the Union Bank of India at Phase 1 in Mohali went off last night.

Residents gathered on the spot to witness the proceedings, which resulted in the blockade of the road in front of the bank. A police team, led by SHO Kanwaljit Singh, reached the spot immediately and surrounded the office, apprehending it to be a case of burglary. Some bank officials, too, reached the spot.

Later, it was found that the siren had gone off due to some problem in the electricity connection. — tns

Chandigarh, April 27
The PU Senate unanimously resolved to replace the six-day working schedule in the PU affiliated colleges with five-day working schedule. The house has authorised the Vice-Chancellor to take-up the issue with the Punjab Government and UT Administration for the final decision. The issue which was supported by majority of the house members was passed by the Senate, however, VC Arun Kumar Grover said that he would be pursuing the case with the government and administration for the final consent over implementing the decision in the colleges of Punjab and Chandigarh.

Dalip Kumar, a Senate member stated that there was no problem in adopting a five -day schedule in the colleges as the UGC mandate of 180 teaching days would be followed with five-day week.

UT advisor KK Sharma who is the ex-officio member of the Senate also attended the meeting in the evening followed by UT Finance-cum-Education Secretary VK Singh, although, Singh is not a member of Senate. Kuljeet Singh Nagra Congress MLA from Fatehgarh Sahib who is a nominated member of the house also attended the house meeting.

Chandigarh, April 27
A special senate meeting called by the Panjab University to take-up the issues related to the colleges, turned out to be a futile exercise. The meeting concluded with a simple ecision to form a coordination committee of representatives from Punjabi University, Patiala, and Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, to take-up the common issues pertaining to the colleges with the Punjab Government.

Gurdip Sharma, a Senate member stated that they were expecting healthy discussion over the problem of colleges and some concrete solutions to them. "The issues discussed in the meeting today are repeatedly being discussed, for the last many years. Even today's meeting was restricted to same discussions", he said.

Karamjeet Singh another senate member said that the expected issues were not resolved and the meeting turned out to be a formality.

Another senate Jagwant Singh who had given a total of 17 resolutions pertaining to the colleges and the teachers, stated that all the issues were related to the Punjab government and it seemed that there was some pressure that the agenda could not be discussed.

Singh further added that instead of specific agenda and resolution, a general discussion took place which led to no conclusion. "After today's meeting I have decided to explore another platform to address the grievance of teachers and colleges", he added.

The Vice-Chancellor Arun Kumar Grover, however, said that many issues were discussed during the meeting and it has been decided that the issue of lifting ban from the recruitment of teachers in the colleges of Punjab would be taken-up with the state government. "It has also been decided that Punjabi University and GNDU would be approached to form a coordination committee to take-up the issues related to the colleges", he said.

Dinesh Talwar, a Senate member stated that it was a sheer eye wash and wastage of time and money because the core agenda and resolutions were not even discussed in the meeting.

Chandigarh, April 27
Local MP and Union Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal announced a grant of Rs 6 lakh from his MPLAD fund to upgrade the two classrooms of Vatika School for Special Children in Sector 19 with the latest modern facilities.

Bansal who was the chief guest at the function, also launched school’s website besides school magazine that would carry articles by school staff and students.

While addressing the gathering, he applauded the efforts of disabled students for showing keen interest in learning. While school has been doing wonderful job to instill confidence in students here. He said that several Public Sector Undertakings, as part of their corporate social responsibility, had started funding portion of their income towards education and health activities. “I will personally speak to them for their possible funding to this school, he said. School officials said that the MPLAD funding would help them starting smart classrooms in the school and further impart best of the education to the students.

The function also saw several cultural function staged by the students of the school. Besides performing dance, a skit by deaf students on national integration spellbound the audience.