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MBBS aspirants seek transparency in counselling
Faridkot, August 1
Blaming the authorities of the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS), Faridkot, for the lack of transparency in the admission to the MBBS courses in Punjab medical colleges, a delegation of candidates along with their parents today met the vice-chancellor of the university.

Buy our books or face action, publisher threatens school heads
Bathinda, August 1
The heads of government schools were in for a surprise when they accessed their e-mails this morning. In the inbox was a mail from a publisher, JR Printing Press, Nabha Gate, Sangrur, directing the teachers to ask the students to buy their Mittal Practical Notebooks only for Classes VI to XII or else their complaint would be lodged with the education department.

Man kills wife, self
Muktsar, August 1
Suspecting the fidelity of his wife, a man allegedly killed her and then committed suicide by consuming poison at his house in Panjawa village of Lambi block this afternoon. The police said the bodies of Gurnam Singh, a farm labourer, and his wife Kulwant Kaur were found lying in a pool of blood in their house. There was no one at the house when the incident occurred.

MBBS aspirants seek transparency in counselling
Balwant Garg
Tribune News Service

Faridkot, August 1
Blaming the authorities of the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS), Faridkot, for the lack of transparency in the admission to the MBBS courses in Punjab medical colleges, a delegation of candidates along with their parents today met the vice-chancellor of the university.

"While the university is lacking in transparency in the admission process, the university website too has not been updated and other information channels are also not there. Therefore, the students are in confusion," alleged Dr Sanjiv Sethi, father of an aspiring student.

While the medical colleges and the authorities in the adjoining states of Haryana, Rajasthan and Chandigarh have made public the provisional merit list of the candidates category wise much before the start of the counselling process by uploading the complete information on their websites, this has not been the case with BFUHS.

The university has not informed the aspiring students about the actual position of their wards and students from all over the state are making rounds of the university in Faridkot in utter confusion, alleged the parents .

Demanding that the university authorities should be sensitive toward the students who were coming from far away places, the parents and the students demanded that the VC make the admission process for MBBS transparent and upload the provisional merit list of MBBS candidates on the university website.

Assuring thtat there was nothing wrong in the admission process, Dr SS Gill, vice-chancellor, BFUHS, said the disclosure of the provisional list create more confusion among the candidates. "We are doing our best so that candidates and their parents face no problem in the admission process, the counseling for which is going to start on Friday," said the VC.

Dr Indervir Singh from Moga blamed the university for another glitch that was creating confusion among the candidates. He said as per clause 18 of the Punjab Government Notification No.5/9/2009-3HB-III/2883, dated 05-06-2013, regarding admissions to MBBS/BDS courses in Punjab for the session 2013, candidates and their parents have to submit a sworn declaration that the candidate has not passed the qualifying exam from more than one Board/University and had not appeared for counselling in any other state/UT except for central counseling.

"But BFUHS, Faridkot, did not demand such a sworn declaration along with the application forms of the candidates. As a result, many candidates from other states are going to appear for the counselling despite the fact that these candidates are appearing for counselling in their respective states," said Dr Indervir.

The VC said the BFUHS will take care of this demand of the candidates and sworn affidavit from all candidates in this respect will be taken before the start of the admission process. 

Buy our books or face action, publisher threatens school heads
Megha Mann
Tribune News Service

Bathinda, August 1
The heads of government schools were in for a surprise when they accessed their e-mails this morning. In the inbox was a mail from a publisher, JR Printing Press, Nabha Gate, Sangrur, directing the teachers to ask the students to buy their Mittal Practical Notebooks only for Classes VI to XII or else their complaint would be lodged with the education department.

The letter flummoxed the school heads who consulted each other on whether to follow the directions in the mail or not. Government school students require practical notebooks for the subjects of science, physical education, mathematics and computers.

The aforesaid company was given the contract for supplying practical copies at cheaper rates to the students across the state.The Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) had allowed the company to supply practical copies from September 1, 2012 to August 31, 2013. However, due to some reason, the education department suspended the supply of these notebooks in the market, challenging which the company owners filed a petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The company now has got a stay from the court on the departmental orders and claims that it has been allowed to sell the notebooks.

Since its approval expires on August 31, the company, in its bid to clear its pending stock, has taken this step. The owner of JR Printing Press, Rajinder Mittal said the mail has been sent to all the government schools in-charge across the state. "Due to government orders, our sales remained suspended for a month and half. We have now been given a stay. We thought we should reach out to the government schools ourselves and ask the schools to buy our practical notebooks," he said accepting that his company had sent the e-mails.

Interestingly, the e-dossier sent to the school heads has letters from the education department issued from time to time about the sale of approved practical notebooks. The company's letter mentions that if the teachers do not abide by the norms, it (company) would complain against the teachers to the education department authorities.

The company also has access to the letters of education department that are sent to school heads and district education officers, which it has attached in the mail. The mail has been sent at the e-mail addresses that are present with the department only and are not public.

The DPI, Secondary, Kamal Garg said, "The letter is illegal. Only the education department can post any letter to the school and not some private publisher. No one should take this letter seriously."

The director, academic planning, PSEB, Amrita Gill, who is responsible for the preparation of text books, syllabus and academic planning, said: "The PSEB does not endorses any such letter."

DEO (Senior Secondary) Sahibzada Ajitgarh-cum-nodal officer in books buying has issued a letter on March 15 this year and directed that practical notebooks be bought from an approved firm and action will be taken against the teachers who do not comply with orders But the same was stopped through a memo issued on May 6, 2013 The publisher then went to the high court and filed a writ. HC gave stay through its judgment dated July 5, 2013 The JR Printing Press issued e-mail to all the school heads on August 1

Man kills wife, self

Muktsar, August 1
Suspecting the fidelity of his wife, a man allegedly killed her and then committed suicide by consuming poison at his house in Panjawa village of Lambi block this afternoon.

The police said the bodies of Gurnam Singh, a farm labourer, and his wife Kulwant Kaur were found lying in a pool of blood in their house. There was no one at the house when the incident occurred. The children of the deceased couple, Parminder Kaur and Jaimal Singh, had gone to school. When they returned home at around 2 pm, they found their parents dead. They immediately rushed to their neigbours and told them of the killing. The neigbours called the police, which found that the head of the woman had been hit with a farming tool. An empty bottle of pesticide was recovered from the spot.

The Lambi police has initiated investigations. — TNS