Mandi, May 30
The Congress today turned the occasion of filing of nomination by its candidate Pratibha Singh into a united show of strength under its star campaigner Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh. It also used the occasion to launch an attack on the rival BJP.

The party told voters how former Chief Minister PK Dhumal had allegedly turned the government into a police state for which they were shown the door in the recently concluded Assembly elections.

Addressing a public meeting in support of Pratibha, who filed her nomination here today, Virbhadra said all the wrongdoers in the telephone tapping incident and land deals related to the HP Cricket Association in Dharamsala would be brought to justice as per law.

He alleged that Dhumal misused telecom technology brought here for the benefit of the state by then Telecom Minister Sukh Ram.

He alleged that the previous government turned the state police into a private company, implicated Congress workers, sold projects and lands to outsiders, tapped lakhs of calls, bugged telephone of his rooms when he was the Steel Minister and registered false cases against PTA teachers and Congress workers, who had burnt his effigies.

“It was an unprecedented blow to the democracy and no wonder people have turned the ‘mission repeat’ of the BJP into ‘mission defeat’ in the last Assembly elections,” he said.

Health Minister Kaul Singh Thakur alleged that the Dhumal government always discriminated against Mandi and stopped all the development works.

Irrigation and Public Health Minister Vidya Stokes said it was a matter of pride that UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi had given the ticket to a woman, Pratibha Singh.

Pratibha said she had nursed the Mandi constituency as an MP, raised voice on issues like the construction of the Rohtang tunnel with the UPA chairperson and today the tunnel was under construction.

“I will serve the people like Virbhadra Singh, who was declared the best MP in using the MPLAD funds in the country,” she added. State president Sukhvinder Singh alleged that the BJP was ruled by the “DAB company” (Dhumal, his son Anurag Thakur, and Bindal) and the CM office acted as a middleman selling lands to outsiders and turned politics into an instrument of commerce.

Transport Minister GS Bali also alleged that the BJP cheated the youth of the state, while Virbhadra Singh government had started new initiatives for their employment.

Those who were present there included Anil Sharma, Parkash Chaudhary, Sohan Lal Thakur, Sukh Ram, Sujan Singh Pathania, Thakur Singh Bharmouri, Sudhri Sharma, Mukesh Agnihotri, Dhani Ram Shandil, Karan Singh, Mansa Ram, Nand Lal, Ravi Thakur, Jagat Negi, Khub Ram, Gangu Ram Musafir, Harsh Mahajan, Rangila Ram Rao, Tek Chand Dogra, Surinder Pal and Ram Lal Thakur

Shimla, May 30
With the efforts of veteran horticulture scientist Chiranjit Parmar from Mandi, apple cultivation no longer remains the exclusive domain of Himalayan hill areas. The scientist has helped farmers in Karnataka to grow the fruit.

He established an apple plantation alongside palm trees in an alien environment and the plants started bearing fruits within two years. Normally, it takes six to seven years for the plants to come to fruiting in the temperate climate of Himachal and other apple-growing states.

Apple saplings planted in January 2011 are laden with fruits these days. The success has encouraged many more farmers to take up apple cultivation. Some of the plants have grown up to 13-ft tall and their girth has also been increased proportionately. “The main reason for the quick growth is that there is no winter dormancy in Karnataka and the plant continues to grow incessantly. In northern hilly areas, the plants shed leaves and lapse into dormancy with the onset of winter, a natural mechanism which helps in resisting extreme cold conditions and revives with spring when flowering takes place,” Parmar said.

He said he selected self-pollinating varieties to begin with and selected places where the minimum temperature remained above 10°C and the maximum did not exceeded 35°C so that there was no dormancy. In such areas, flowering continued round the year and farmers could take full advantage by taking two crops a year, he said.

In the first year, 300 plants from Bajaura in Kullu after the dormancy was broken were provided to farmers in different areas. This year, 800 plants were supplied and over all, 2,000 plants were cultivated since January 2011 in Dakshina Kannada, Chikmagalur, Kodagu, Tumkur and Shimoga, he added.

“Farmers in Indonesia are already doing that and they have regulated fruit-bearing trees to have fruit round the year,” he said.

In fact, the idea to propagate apple in Karnataka struck him during his visit to Java where he saw apple and banana growing in the same orchard. “One could see apple plants in different stages, flowering and fruit setting and ready for harvesting,” Parmar said.

For taking two crops a year, farmers will have to strip the plant of leaves after harvesting. Thereafter, the farmers will have a flush of flowering enabling them to have another crop. The maturity of crop can be spread throughout the year by removing their leaves at different times. The only disadvantage is that the temperate fruit grown in tropical conditions have a small shelf life. The Karnataka apple has a shelf life of 12 to 14 days and it could be marketed like grapes, litchi and other fruits, he said.

In the second phase, Parmar plans to propagate commercial cross-pollinated varieties so that plantations of around 50 trees can be tried out. Further, experimental plantation will be raised in more locations to select the most suitable areas for growing the fruit.

Shimla, May 30
Scientists, administrators and other experts have underlined the need for an effective networking of various institutions engaged in research on climate change for a well-coordinated effort to study the reaction of glaciers and in turn the Himalayan river system.

A two-day brainstorming workshop on “Snow, Glaciers and the Himalayan River System” organised by the State Centre for Climate Change concluded here today. The workshop emphasised on the use of the latest technology to study the behaviour of glaciers to create a database which could be used for taking up measures to mitigate the impact of climate change.

Apart from monitoring the increase and decrease in the aerial extent and volume, the accumulation of snow packs and contribution to discharge in river should also be studied.

Regular assessment of snow cover should also be carried out, the workshop emphasised.

Further, it was deliberated in the workshop that based on an authentic data, a model should be developed for forecasting discharge, which could help in the management of power and irrigation projects during events like floods. The reaction of rivers to climate change should also take care of socio-economic fallout for devising suitable adaptation strategies. The stress should be on undertaking holistic studies covering all the related aspects, the workshop said.

Further, there were a large number of glaciers which were still unnamed. The state governments should take initiative and form panels of scientists to name these glaciers for the convenience of researchers and the common man, the workshop said.

A comprehensive assessment climate change and multi-hazard risk should be undertaken by including the study of lakes formed in high-altitude areas due to the melting of glaciers, which held a potential threat, scientists said.

Most scientists favoured a systematic approach by focusing on selected glaciers to have a focused approach for creating benchmarks and database. 

Shimla, May 30
The peak tourist season is proving to be an agonising period, both for the locals as well as tourists with utter traffic chaos, choked roads, inadequate parking space, water scarcity and to top it all, coal tarring work being undertaken on the Cart Road during the busiest time of the year.

Constant traffic jams, which was earlier restricted to school and office hours, has become the order of the day. With thousands of tourist vehicles adding to the volume of traffic, commuting to school and office is nothing short of a nightmare, especially for the locals.

To add to the misery of commuters, the Public Works Department (PWD) has chosen the peak tourist season to undertake coal-tarring of the Circular Road. Rather than undertaking the work on a war-footing, especially during weekends and on holidays, tarring is being done in bits and pieces at a snail’s pace with traffic coming to a virtual halt.

Despite Shimla being publicised as an international tourist destination, the “Queen of Hills” lacks adequate parking slots to accommodate tourist vehicles. Tourists who are making a beeline to the hill town to escape the sweltering heat also rue the traffic chaos and lack of parking space.

“A majority of hotels are not drive-in and one has to be really lucky to find a place in the handful of parking slots,” said Mohit Kapoor, a tourist from Delhi.

Even as hoteliers are doing a good business with swarms of tourists visiting the town, it is the locals who are facing the brunt with perpetual traffic jams.

However, the work on the four proposed parking in the town is nowhere near completion, as tourists are forced to park vehicles along roadsides.

The loading and unloading of trucks and other carriers beyond the limited time on the Circular Road, especially past 8 am in the morning, makes matters worse. The experiment of the district police of deputing “inexperienced” women constables on traffic duty on the busy Cart Road seems to have “aggravated” the problem as they are not adept in handling such situations.

The water supply in the town has also started getting affected. Though rationing has not been started by the local Municipal Corporation, the duration of supply has been reduced and some of the localities on the fringes are beginning to face shortage.

Dharamsala, May 30
Local artistes of Kangra district are sore at being allegedly ignored in the recently concluded Kangra Valley Summer Festival. They have written a letter to Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh regarding the neglected artistes of the Kangra District Forum, alleging that local art and artistes were ignored by organisers of the event.

Karnail Rana, a prominent folk artiste from Kangra, said he was disappointed at not being invited to perform at the Kangra festival. "I am the only A-classified folk artiste by AIR from Himachal. I have worked relentlessly for the preservation and promotion of Kangra folk music. However, local event organisers have been ignoring me. I got a lot of calls during the two-day Kangra festival from locals who were enquiring if I would perform. But nobody from the local organising committee invited me," he said.

"It really pains we you are ignored in your own home town," he added.

Meanwhile, the peeved artistes of Kangra in a letter to the CM, a copy of which was provided to The Tribune, alleged that due to monopoly and arbitrary attitude of the Kangra district administration, most of the famous folk artistes were ignored at the festival. Except Sanjiv Dixit, no other prominent Kangra folk artiste was given a chance to present the real Kangri folk, they alleged.

They further alleged that the district administration had given only Rs 2,000 or 3,000 to small-time local artistes against Rs 5,000 recommended by the committee. This was clear discrimination against local folk artistes, they said.

The district administration had given maximum chance to folk artistes of Shimla, Kullu and Solan districts. Artistes from these districts were given reasonable money in the name of a complete troupe. However, the fact was that all outsiders had given individual performances on the stage and charged money in the name of a group, Kangra artistes alleged.

They alleged that agents booked Mumbai and Punjabi artistes for every festival of Himachal. The Kangra Valley Festival Committee had not followed the transparent procedure of tenders and quotations to engage them. "Artistes have been selected arbitrarily to favour certain agents under political pressure," they alleged.

Artistes of Kangra district have demanded that government fairs and festivals of Himachal Pradesh should be free from political interference and opportunities should be given to talented and budding artistes of the state in a fair and transparent manner.

According to the complaint, the prominent Kangra folk artistes who were ignored included Karnail Rana, Deeraj Dhiman, Suresh Chauhan and Varsha Katoch.

Rakesh Sharma, ADM, Kangra, who headed the committee for the selection of artistes for the Kangra Valley Summer Festival, denied the allegations. He said around 50 folk artistes from Himachal were given a chance to perform during the festival. Most of them could not be given a chance due to rain and constraint of time, he added.

Nahan, May 30
Despite housing the second highest number of industries in the state with an investment of Rs 5,000 crore, Sirmaur district continues to lag behind in human development index (HDI).

The district stood at a poor second-last position in the state in the HDI.

In a bid to rein in industrial units GS Chauhan, General Manager, District Industries Centre, Nahan, has stepped up his efforts to ensure compliance of corporate social responsibility from the over 600 industrial units.

Talking to The Tribune here today, Chauhan said he had sought details from investors about funds incurred and works implemented in undertaking various activities under the corporate social responsibility.

Works like adopting schools and villages, setting up hospitals, dispensaries, laboratories, providing ambulances, scholarships to needy children, initiating drive against drug menace etc, could be taken up by the investors to help the community, he said.

As a beginning, the Sirmaur Chapter of Laghu Udyog Bharti (LUB) has come forward to help poor girls by setting aside a fund for marrying needy girls in Kala Amb.

The LUB, through its Laghu Udyog Sewa Samiti, has decided to adopt nine panchayats lying in Kala Amb industrial area. As a beginning, state president, LUB, Tajinder Goyal said he would contribute Rs 51,000 for this fund on an annual basis. More funds would be collected to help poor girls of the area.

Vipul Ghai, president, Sirmaur chapter, LUB, said a fund of Rs 1.2 lakh had been kept aside initially for this purpose as a step towards corporate social responsibility.

A committee comprising panchayat pradhans of nine panchayats and three members of LUB would be formed and each panchayat could recommend three to four girls. Each girl would be extended financial aid of Rs 5,100.

Dharamsala, May 30
The Dharamsala-based Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) has once again categorically rejected China’s allegations of “outside forces” instigating self-immolation protests inside Tibet.

The Kashag (Cabinet) in a statement here said China’s recent claims, made in a documentary on self-immolation protests, aired on China Central Television on May 16, didn’t have a strand of truth.

“To prove their accusations that the self-immolations are being instigated by outside forces, the documentary carries randomly edited and isolated portions of speeches made by the Dalai Lama, Dr Lobsang Sangay and Kasur Kirti Rinpoche to serve the Chinese government’s own specific designs,” the statement said.

China’s official news agency Xinhua, in an earlier report, had said the documentary was “aimed at helping the international community to understand the truth of the situation” and made after “in-depth research and interviews.”

Days after the documentary was aired, on May 27, Tenzin Sherab (31), a Tibetan nomad became the 118th Tibetan living under China’s rule to set himself on fire since 2009. Tibetan self-immolators have demanded freedom in Tibet and the return of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama from exile.

In the statement, the Tibetan administration in exile again expressed its readiness for a thorough investigation into the allegations made by Beijing.

Kangra, May 30
More than a dozen schools in the district affiliated with the CBSE achieved 100 per cent pass percentage in the Class X result which was declared today. Most of the students got the highest grades in the examination.

The principals of the schools congratulated the students for their excellent performance and their parents for co-operation throughout the session.

List of schools which scored 100 per cent result in Class X examination: DAV Public Senior Secondary School, Alampur, Aadhunik Public School, Sidhbari, Dharamsala, Rainbow International School, Nagrota Bagwan, Green Field Senior Secondary School, Nagrota Bagwan, Neugal Public Senior Secondary School, Palampur, DAV Public School, Palampur, DAV Public School, Rehan, MCS, Jassur, DAV Public School, Bagni, Nurpur, DAV Senior Secondary Public School, Dehra and DAV Public School, Hamirpur.

Kangra, May 30
The Himachal Pradesh Board of School Education today declared the results of the State Open School (SOS) secondary course (matriculation) examination which was conducted in March this year.

Rakhil Kahlon, secretary, Board, said 10,389 students appeared in the examination and 2,548 were declared successful and 6,370 figured in the reappear category. The pass percentage was 23.5 per cent.

She said candidates could appear for revaluation and rechecking by June 13.

The secretary said in the SOS examination there was no merit list.

Ropar, May 30
The Anandpur Sahib-Naina Devi ropeway project put under review by the Himachal Pradesh Government is likely to gather steam. The Punjab Tourism Department is preparing to get in touch with its counterpart in Himachal Pradesh with a proposal to rework the modalities of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in this regard last year.

Punjab Tourism Minister Sarwan Singh Phillaur said the state would pursue the matter with an open mind and all the issues relating to the project would be sorted out amicably.

Talking to the Tribune, the minister said he was told by officials in the department that the Himachal Pradesh Government had objected over the cost and income sharing clause of the project, citing that a major portion of the projects lay in the hilly state.

According to the MoU, both the states are to fund the project equally and share the revenue in the same ratio. The modalities could be reworked. In the interest of the devotees, the project should not be stalled at any cost, said Phillaur.

On July 26 last year, the then Punjab Tourism Director KS Sra and HP Tourism Director Arun Sharma had signed an MoU for the project, which was to cost Rs 85 crore.

According to the pact between the two states, the take-off point for the ropeway was to be set up at Rampur village in Punjab with a halt at a distance of 274.58 m at Kola Wala Toba in Himachal Pradesh. The other end of the ropeway was to be located at the temple.

However, the change of government in Himachal Pradesh in December did not augur well for the project. The new government found the MoU lopsided and mulled terminating the pact. Officials as well as politicians in Himachal Pradesh raised concern over modalities of the pact, stating that there was no use of sharing the project with Punjab on a 50:50 ratio when a mere 275 m of the 3,751-metre-long ropeway was to fall in Punjab.

Himachal Pradesh Principal Secretary (Tourism) VC Pharka said the review committee set up by Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh was still examining the issue.

Bone of contention Officials in the new HP Govt said there was no use of sharing the project with Punjab on a 50:50 ratio A mere 275 m of the 3,751-m-long ropeway was to fall in Punjab

Kangra, May 30
Tension gripped Thana Khas village falling under Nagrota Bagwan police station over the cremation of a 26-year-old woman who had committed suicide. Her in-laws were booked for abetment to suicide and arrested, the police said here today.

The police said Babli Devi, wife of Amar Jeet of Thana Khas village, near Sheera Thana, last night consumed poison and was rushed to the DRPGMC, Tanda, where she died. Mehar Chand, Babli's father, lodged a report with the Nagrota Bagwan police that she was tortured by her in-laws for dowry.

The police registered a case under Sections 498-A and 306, IPC, and arrested Amarjeet Singh, husband, Sukh Pal, father-in-law, and Parveena, step mother-in-law of the victim.

The body, after autopsy, was handed over to her parents who took the body to her in-laws' village and wanted to cremate it in their courtyard.

Heavy police deployment was made in the village to avoid any untoward incident. Police officer Ram Singh helped avert an ugly situation and the body was cremated at the village cremation ground.

Nurpur, May 30
The local police yesterday arrested Sahib Singh, alias Tillu, of Baranda village for allegedly outraging the modesty of a married woman of the same village. The woman was sleeping in the house with her children on Tuesday night when the accused entered her room and started molesting her. She raised an alarm and villagers reached there. They caught the accused.

DSP Rajiv Atre said: “Following a complaint of the victim, a case under Section 354, IPC, has been registered against the culprit.” — OC