Dharamsala, November 17
The Pong Dam wildlife sanctuary, that is supposed to be a paradise for migratory birds in North India, is not well protected. The reason is that very few forest officials want to work in the Wildlife Department and there is sheer lack of resolve on the part of the state government to post officials in the wildlife wing of the Forest Department.

The Pong Dam wildlife sanctuary is spread across an area of 307 sq km around the Pong Dam lake that has been declared an international wetland at the Ramsar convention. The wildlife wing of Himachal has recorded 421 species of birds, 95 species of butterflies and 24 varieties of fish in the Pong Dam wildlife sanctuary. Besides, the sanctuary has a very diverse flora and fauna.

Sources in the wildlife department said many bird varieties are adopting the Pong Dam lake as their breeding ground due to a large water body, ample availability of food and lesser pollutants in water.

In the past few years, wildlife experts have noticed that the Pong Dam lake receives some very rare varieties of migratory birds. The rare varieties of migratory birds that have been spotted in the wildlife sanctuary include Little Gull, Mugull, Buff Bellied Pipit, Eurasian Skylark, Nordman Green Shank and Great White Fronted Geese. A migratory bird Hooper Swan was has been noticed in the Pong Dam. The lake also receives the highest population of bar-headed geese. Experts have estimated a population of about 40,000 bar-headed geese in the Pong Dam lake.

Last year, the wildlife wing of Himachal had recorded about 1 lakh migratory birds in the Pong Dam lake. The number is among the highest in the country.

Despite having such a large area and diverse and rare varieties of migratory birds, the state government has appointed just nine guards and two rangers in the wildlife sanctuary. The post of DFO, Wildlife, is located in Hamirpur despite the fact that there was no wildlife sanctuary in the said district. The post was created at Hamirpur just due to political reasons during the stint of the previous BJP government in power.

In contrast, the Bharatpur wildlife sanctuary, located in Rajasthan, that is another well-known bird paradise like Pong Dam lake is well protected. The Bharatpur wildlife sanctuary is spread across just 29 sq km area. It has about 30 forest guards, many forest rangers, DFO wildlife and a post of assistant conservator of forests. In contrast, the Pong Dam lake, that is spread across 307 sq km, has just 11 guards and officers posted to guard such a large area. Many of the officers posted at the Pong Dam lake are nearing retirement and have little interest in wildlife conservation, sources here said.

Sources in the forest department of the state said the Pong Dam wildlife sanctuary needs better protection than the Bharatpur wildlife sanctuary. The people residing around the Bharatpur wildlife sanctuary are Bishnois who culturally and religiously protect wildlife. In contrast, the people residing in the vicinity of the Pong Dam wildlife sanctuary have a history of being hunters or poachers.

There have been incidents when the farmers have reportedly poisoned and killed the migratory birds as they feel they damage their crops. After strict action taken by the wildlife officials, the incidents of mass poisoning of the birds are supposed to have decreased. Last year, a forest official was caught poaching the migratory birds.

The state government could shift the post of DFO wildlife from Hamirpur to Pong Dam so that the wildlife sanctuary is better administered, sources say.

Mandi, November 17
Health and Family Welfare Minister Kaul Singh Thakur inaugurated the Lambi Chaku-Khajru road and flagged off a new bus on the route here yesterday.

Addressing a public meeting, Kaul Singh said Rs 2,291 crore was being spent on the construction of roads, buildings and bridges in the current financial year. He said roads were an important mode of transportation in the hills and places linked with the roads could avail the benefits of development activities.

The minister said the state government was laying special emphasis on building roads and this road would be extended till Galmatha to provide shorter route to Padhar.

Talking about the drinking water facilities in the state, Kaul Singh said the state government was committed to provide drinking water facilities at all levels and need-based drinking water schemes were being implemented.

He said a drinking water scheme at a cost of Rs 1.91 crore would be started for the residents of Chaku.

The minister said steps were being taken to solve the problem of voltage in the area for which a transformer would be installed here soon.

Shimla, November 17
The state unit of the BJP has expressed resentment over the reluctance of the Congress-led government to confer Bharat Ratna on former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Spokesperson of the party Ganesh Dutt welcomed the decision to confer the highest honour of the country on Sachin Tendulkar but rued that the claim of Vajpayee was being consistently ignored. It virtually meant ignoring patriotism and contribution of one of the most deserving leaders of the country. He alleged that the UPA regime was deliberately ignoring Vajpayee because under his leadership, India emerged a global power.

The manner and boldness with which Vajpayee went ahead and carried out the strategic Pokhran-II nuclear tests raised the stature of the country in the eyes of the comity of nations. He was not cowed down by the threats of the USA to impose sanctions, if India went ahead with the explosions and put the country firmly in the elite club of nuclear powers.

Vajpayee had also formulated a plan to link rivers to prevent floods and ensure adequate water for drinking and irrigation, which had been put on the back burner by the UPA government. Jawaharlal Nehru had gauged the political acumen and capability of Vajpayee and Narasimha Rao and deputed him to lead the country’s delegation to the World Forums.

Shimla, November 17
The police has categorised all the major temples in the state according to their significance and prepared an inventory of antique idols and other artifacts housed in them as a precautionary measure against thefts. There is a huge demand for these items in the international market.

With increasing thefts in temples and monasteries, which usually stay unguarded, the state police has decided to ensure surveillance in those housing expensive idols. Besides, the police said local community members would be taken into confidence for reporting about any suspicious elements in the vicinity of temples.

The lone caretaker of the Tirasang monastery in Kinnaur district was found murdered yesterday and idols were found to be stolen.

It is the first time that such a categorisation has been made here. Temples have been put under three categories, depending on their vulnerability to thefts and their significance.

A total of 158 temples and monasteries, which house the most valuable items, have been placed under the first category. Most of the temples falling under this category are located in the tribal district of Kinnaur (58), followed by Kullu (45). The number of such buildings falling in the second category is 133 and the third category is 568.

“Details of temples such as their antiquity, footfall of pilgrims and the existing security system has also been compiled,” said Director General of Police Sanjay Kumar. He said some of these temples had little or no security.

“We keep sending advisories to temple committees from time to time telling them to ensure proper lockers, grills, security, closed-circuit TV cameras and guards but at times, even these things fail to prevent thefts,” he said.

In many cases of thefts at temples, priceless "ashtdhatu" idols of various gods and goddesses were stolen and sold in international market. In one such theft in Rohru, five Nepalese, who were later nabbed, had been engaged to accomplish the task.

The police said with a complete inventory in their possession, they would be in a better position to provide requisite security and surveillance to various temples.

Most of these buildings located in remote and interior areas are centuries-old and house priceless antiques.

Renuka, November 17
The six-day historic international Renuka Fair came to an end today with the Chief Parliamentary Secretary Vinay Kumar presiding over the closing ceremony.

The six-day fair had begun on the Dashmi when the palanquin of Lord Parshuram was brought to Renuka Ji from the ancient temple in Jamu Koti village in a traditional procession known as ‘Shobha Yatra’.

A large number of people witnessed the closing ceremony where the deities of Lord Parshuram and other gods were taken in a palanquin to their respective abodes after their six-day sojourn. People offered their prayers in the local temple on this occasion.

Vinay Kumar, while addressing the gathering, said such fairs were reminiscent of the state’s rich cultural heritage and they helped in the economic uplift of the locals. He said appropriate facilities should be provided to the self-help groups in selling their products, especially those run by the women.

He also visited the stalls exhibiting developmental activities undertaken by various government and non-governmental organisations and also gave away prizes to the winners. The horticulture department bagged the first prize while the second and third positions were bagged by the the District Rural Development Organisation and the Agriculture Department respectively.

Others present on the occasion included Deputy Commissioner Vikas Labroo, SP Sumedha Diwedi and officials of the Renuka Development Board.

Kangra, November 17
Indian Youth Congress workers under the leadership of RS Bali today celebrated the victory of his supporters who were elected to different posts of the block, district and Lok Sabha levels. They burst crackers and took out a victory procession which culminated at the residence of Bali.

Neetu Choudary, who was elected president of the Youth Congress for the Kangra Lok Sabha constituency, addressed a press conference at the residence of Bali, vice-president of the State Youth Congress and son of Transport Minister GS Bali.

Neetu said it was because of the vision of Rahul Gandhi that the Youth Congress witnessed free and fair poll. She said it was because of his vision, the Indian Youth Congress was one of the biggest organisations of the world.

She said in the Kangra-Chamba segment, she was elected president by securing 1,005 votes against 419 votes secured by her nearest rival Sunil Sharma. She said it was possible because of the positive thinking of GS Bali that a woman and member of OBC community was elected with a thumping majority.

She said without the support of RS Bali and outgoing president Ashish Butail, this victory was not possible. She, however, said it was shocking that a "parashoot" Congress leader of a neighbouring Assembly segment had approached people to cast vote against her. She, however, refused to name the leader in the party interests.

She demanded that the party should provide ticket for the Kangra Lok Saba seat to RS Bali.

Those who attended the press conference were newly elected office-bearers Usha Devi, vice-president, Kangra; Pankaj Thakur, Sunny, Abhinav, Rajesh Kumar, Munish Saini, Chetak Kanwar, Nitin Jamwal, all block presidents of Dehra, Jaswan, Una, Nagrota Bagwan, Kangra and Baijnath, besides Amit Sharma, general secretary, Kangra block, Ankush Sharma, general secretary, Kangra Lok Sabha segment, and Amit Sharma, block vice-president of the Palampur block.

Shimla, November 17
BTech students at the University Institute of Information Technology (UIIT), Himachal Pradesh University (HPU), are suffering a lot due to lack of facilities and proper infrastructure. They do not have proper laboratories and Internet connectivity.

“The students’ agony has been multiplied as they pay Rs 55,000 as fee per semester to the university, but don’t get any facilities. Thirty ad hoc teachers have been running the institute since 2000,” insiders said.

“Matriculates having no ITI or polytechnic diplomas are acting as lab technicians as recruitment was done on political grounds rather than following UGC norms,” the insiders said.

The institute has shifted some senior BTech classes to its new building built at a cost of Rs 3 crore recently. “However, softwares for computer science students are not available. Labs for computer science, physics and chemistry classes have not been provided so far and wifi connectivity is also out of order for the last one month. Nobody is bothered about it,” students said.

Currently junior BTech classes are being run in the basement of the Bio-Science Department. “They brave foul smell emanating from toilets while attending classes in the basement. There is no wash basin even for the director of the institute, leave alone teachers and students,” the insiders said. Even there is no regular director at the UIIT.

Dean, Studies, Suresh Kumar said they were in the process of setting up labs in the new building within two months. "We will call a meeting soon to put all the facilities in place,” he said.

Bilaspur, November 17
State general secretary of the BJP Randhir Sharma has rebutted charges of Congress state general secretary Ram Lal Thakur on former Chief Minister PK Dhumal and has asked him not to level baseless allegations.

He has also asked the Congress leader to come out with specific facts and proof documents to support his charges.

Addressing mediapersons at the Circuit House here yesterday, Sharma challenged Ram Lal Thakur to come out with “all six PAN numbers” that he had alleged in the name of former Chief Minister Dhumal and also tell names of the leaders who owned Rs 50-crore land and Rs 150-crore hotel in Kullu and Delhi, respectively.

“If he has any evidence of any top BJP leader possessing any such illegal assets, he should come out with straight facts and not take shelter of imputations, implications and alibis for his totally false and baseless allegations,” he said.

Sharma said the state BJP had urged the President to order a high-level enquiry into the charges against the Chief Minister. “The state BJP feels that he has not replied to any of the serious charges against him and has only tried to evade these issues. The state government can never order any inquiry into these,” he said.

Sharma said people had the right to know the facts regarding the allegations being levelled against him.

He said Ram Lal had no right to ask any question from the former Chief Minister as he himself was not above board.

Kangra, November 17
One lakh and fifty thousand pilgrims from within and outside the country visited the ancient Jayanti Mata temple here during the five-day Panch Bheesham festival, which concluded today on the occasion of Kartik Poornamashi.

Today, on the last day of the festival, thousands of devotees of the goddess queued up at the steep hillock track from the wee hours and the celebrations continued till the evening.

The Panch Bheesham festival, which goes on for five days, started from November 13. The temple of Jayanti Mata, which has a history said to be dating back to the times of the Mahabharata, witnessed a huge rush of pilgrims today. They queued up for 2 km before paying obeisance at the feet of the goddess.

The festival was being celebrated as marriage of Tulsi and Saligram and was being celebrated here to remember the great warrior and Guru of the Pandavas, Bheeshma Pitamah. The famous Kangra Fort is located on one side of the Manji river and the other side of the same river on the top of the hill is situated the temple of Mata Jayanti.

The centuries old temple was a centre of faith for people from all walks of life within the country and pilgrims from Nepal too were visiting the shrine as Mata Jayanti was Kul Devi of a large number of Nepalis. People from Nepal visited the shrine today and some were seen with their newborn babies and newly-wed couples who had come there to seek the blessings of the goddess.

With the culmination of the five-day Panch Bheesham festival, today, it was the conclusion of the celebration of the marriage ceremony of Tulsi and Saligram. During these five days, devotees worshipped both Tulsi and Saligram at their homes and this poojan also culminated today with bajan and kirtan.

On the last day of Panch Bheesham, women celebrated the marriage of Tulsi and Saligram and lit lamps to decorate their houses. Sisters visited their brothers' homes to perform tilak.

SDM, Kangra, Ajeet Bhardwaj said 1.5 lakh pilgrims were part of the celebrations and there were arrangements like providing drinking water enroute the shrine. He said the road was repaired and elaborate security arrangements were made for this pilgrimage.

Solan, November 17
With 80 per cent chemicals seized by the Patiala police from two Baddi-pharmaceutical units having been diverted to produce illegal synthetic drugs ice (M-amphetamine) and merely 20 per cent are being used in drug manufacture, the working of the Drug Control Administration has come under a scanner.

Police sources claimed that out of the 975 kg of precursor chemicals- ephedrine and pseudoephedrine- seized from the two units MBP Pharmaceuticals and Montek Bio-pharma - only about 300 kg were being used to manufacture tablets and capsules. As against 60 mg and 25 mg tablets and capsules, merely 10 mg doses had been manufactured though lab reports would confirm how much chemical was used in these drugs.

The police sources did not rule out more raids in the Baddi area as several drugs were being surreptitiously manufactured using an active ingredient, dextromethorphan, which was banned in May this year.

This was not the lone case where a finger had been raised at the state’s drug regulatory mechanism. On September 18, illegal psychotropic drugs worth crores manufactured by GSB Pharma, Panjhera, located in Nalagarh, were seized by the Ludhiana police. Unit owners have been booked under the NDPS Act.

Drug Controller Navneet Marwaha has now suspended the licence of this unit as the management had failed to produce the record of its sale, purchase and distribution for the past one year. He said they were conducting a survey to access the working of units which had closed or were on the verge of closure as such cases were attributed to such units.

In yet another case, substandard drugs manufactured by a Kala Amb-based Vardhman Pharma, whose licence had expired in 2009, were being supplied to the Tripura Government on the basis of fake documents and despite registration of a case by the police, its owners were still at large.

Prior to this, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence had detected three units indulging in nefarious drug trading, lending credence to the weak regulatory mechanism in the state.

With scant field staff to man about 600 pharma units, cases of irregularities were pouring in and the state was acquiring the dubious distinction of being the hub of nefarious drug trade.

Navneet Marwaha said they were chalking out a strategy to check the working of such units so that accountability could be fixed.

Shimla, November 17
An untraced burglar strangulated a 65-year-old lama, identified as Tandup of Giu in Spiti, and decamped with an idol of a cave temple at Pooh in upper Kinnaur two days ago.

Ajay Bodh, SP, Kinnaur, said the body was found after five days of the crime as the police was informed on November 14. There was no suspect and police remained clueless. The body was sent to IGMC for postmortem. — TNS

Bilaspur, November 17
Material worth Rs 5 lakh was gutted in a fire that suddenly erupted in the house of Prakash Chand of Maletta village under Kharkadi gram panchayat in the Naina Devi area this afternoon. According to reports, the owner of the house was away and the women present on the occasion could not extinguish the fire before the arrival of villagers.

Almost all jewellery, furniture, utensils, electronic gadgets, beds were gutted in the fire.

The village elders, led by panchayat vice-president Pawan Kumar, have urged the district administration to provide the immediate financial help to affected family. The police has registered a case and is investigating matter as the cause of fire is not known.

Shimla, November 17
Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh visited the main gurdwara on the Circular Road to pay obeisance to Guru Nanak Dev on his 544th birth anniversary today. The Chief Minister greeted the members of the Sikh community on the auspicious day and said the Gurpurb symbolised universal peace, love and brotherhood. He said Guru Nanak Dev spread the message of love, peace and communal harmony to strengthen the bond of universal brotherhood. "He was a great soul who founded Sikkhism and showed society the path of salvation by spreading the cult of devotion to God and compassion for the mankind," he said.

He also participated in the shabad kirtan organised to mark the day. Virbhadra Singh said it had been decided to appoint 100 teachers each for Punjabi and Urdu in selected government schools. He said these teachers would be appointed on contract basis and their services would be regularised after the completion of the stipulated time.

He said in his earlier term as the Chief Minister, he had decided to appoint Punjabi and Urdu teachers but the previous BJP Government appointed only 74 Punjabi teachers and that too without any proper provision. "The government would consider converting the services of these teachers and engage them on contract basis," he said.