Sirsa, December 27
The INLD has distanced itself from action of Rania MLA Krishan Kamboj, who has landed himself in soup after the police booked him for connecting houses of villagers directly to power lines of the DHBVN bypassing the meters.

Senior INLD leadership has not liked the manner in which Kamboj went door to door asking people in his constituency to boycott their power bills, said sources in the party.

Party leaders feel that it is not the function of a political leader to encourage theft of power by connecting houses of people directly with the power supply of the distribution company.

Sources said that Ellenabad MLA Abhey Singh Chautala also showed his displeasure to Kamboj on his visit to Sirsa.

Krishan Kamboj, INLD leader from Rania, who had connected several houses of villagers directly to the power lines of the nigam, had justified his campaign maintaining that the bills were so high that the villagers were not able to pay.

He had also gone door to door in Matuwala and Keharwala villages urging villagers not to pay their bills.

The police yesterday booked Kamboj and five other villagers, whose meters the MLA had bypassed, for theft of power under the Indian Electricity Act, 2005.

Rewari, December 27
BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi will address a rally at Karnal tentatively on February 23.

Furnishing this information to the press here today, State BJP spokesman Veer Kumar Yadav said the decision was taken in a meeting of the core group of the party held last night at Karnal.

He said while the state BJP chief Ram Bilas Sharma chaired the meeting, it was specifically attended by Jagdish Mukhi, senior party leader and in charge of the party affairs in Haryana.

Yadav added that the party would organise parliamentary constituency level conventions of BJP activists at Faridabad and Karnal on February 2, at Bhiwani and Kurukshetra on February 8, at Ambala and Rohtak on February 9, at Sonepat and Hisar on February 15 and at Gurgaon and Sirsa on February 16.

Besides, block-level meetings of booth-level committees of party workers would be held on January 25 and 26 throughout Haryana, the spokesman added.

Chandigarh, December 27
The Centre has approved Rs 1,487-crore power development schemes for 36 towns in Haryana to augment the distribution system in the state.

Devender Singh, Principal Secretary (Power)-cum-Chairman, Haryana Power Utilities, said the schemes would be executed in two parts. Under Part A, the power distribution system would be made IT-based while under Part B, the power distribution system in the towns would be strengthened and renovated.

He said the Central Government was providing cent per cent loan for part A of the schemes. The loan would be converted into a grant if the schemes were completed within the stipulated period.

Part B of the schemes covered renovation, modernisation and strengthening of 11-KV level by way of addition of distribution transformer, re-conductoring of lines at the 11-V level and below, feeder segregation/ bifurcation, load balancing, installation of capacitor banks, mobile service centres etc.

Of the 36 towns, Hisar, Dabwali, Narnaul, Bhiwani, Charkhi Dadri, Hansi, Hodal, Palwal, Barwala, Rewari, Ellenabad, Sirsa, Tohana, Fatehabad, Faridabad and Gurgaon were in the area of the DHBVN.

Ambala Cantt, Ambala City, Panchkula, Kalka, Jhajjar, Bahadurgah, Kaithal, Cheeka, Jind, Narwana, Karnal, Gharaunda, Thanesar, Pehowa, Shahbad, Sonepat, Gohana, Rohtak, Yamunanagar and Panipat were in the area of the UHBVN.

Hisar, December 27
In a reconciliatory move, a group of violence-affected Dalit families of Mirchpur village has approached the district administration to allot them plots in the village under Mahatma Gandhi Gramin Basti Scheme.

A 15-member delegation led by Dalit panchayat member Praveen Kumar met the district authorities today, reminding them their promise to allot plots.

“The authorities have sought 10 more days in completing the process to allot plots. The DC, in a open durbar

last week, assured us to provide plots within a week. The panchayat has finalised land near the bus stand, where plots will be carved out on around 110 acres,” the panch said.

Till now, none of the families were willing to get plots at the village with the hope that the government would rehabilitate them elsewhere. Another group, living at a farmhouse near Hisar, remained adamant on not returning to the village and ruled out acquisition of plots at the village.

“There has not been a single untoward incident in the village after the arson in 2010. The CRPF are here and we have no reason to feel insecure. We do not subscribe to the theory of getting dislodged to settle down elsewhere. The families of Praveen Kumar and Tilak Raj returned from the farmhouse recently. We hope that more will follow suit,” another Dalit man said.

Dalit activist and lawyer Rajat Kalsan said nobody had pressurised the families to stay away from the village. "Those living at the farmhouse have genuine security concerns as many of them have deposed in courts against upper caste convicts,” he said.

Hisar DC JP Kaushik maintained that they had started the process of allotting land to applicants of Mirchpur village under the scheme.

Karnal, December 27
The BJP has demanded that a giant Tricolour should be hoisted in Karnal. BJP leaders have submitted a memorandum for the Governor in this regard to Additional Deputy Commissioner Girish Arora.

State BJP secretary Chander Parkash Kathuria said the flag at the Mini-Secretariat was torn. He demanded that a giant Tricolour should be installed at the Mini-Secretariat.

He expressed concern over the incomplete six-laning project of National Highway 1. He referred to past accidents and said it was dangerous to drive on the incomplete road stretch.

Rohtak, December 27
For the first time in the state’s history, the Haryana Government decided to give away awards to teachers of the government colleges on the occasion of Teachers’ Day this year.

However, no criteria were laid down to select the college teachers to be awarded, nor were any applications invited. Members of the jury constituted for selecting the best teachers for the awards recommended their own names. Officials serving in the Department of Higher Education were also given the awards meant for the teachers.

This was revealed by the authorities concerned themselves in response to an RTI application of Subhash, state convener of the Haryana Soochna Adhikar Manch.

As per the information furnished by the government functionaries in the RTI reply, it was maintained that Haryana Financial Commissioner-cum-Principal Secretary (Higher Education) SS Prasad convened a meeting of the officials concerned on August 7, during which a four-member jury was constituted to select 10 best teachers and three principals from the government colleges across the state for the awards.

The jury comprised Sirsa-based Chaudhary Devi Lal University (CDLU) Vice-Chancellor and former college principal Dr RS Sharma, former college principals PD Sharma and Ashok Diwakar and Hemant Verma, a Deputy Director in the Higher Education Department. However, documents in possession of The Tribune reveal that after the committee gave its recommendations, Secretary (Higher Education) Ankur Gupta desired that three deputy directors of the department “may also be honoured” - and they were!

Eventually, the names of three of the four members of the jury, including Dr RS Sharma, Ashok Diwakar and Hemant Verma, were recommended for the awards.

Curiously, the fourth member of the jury, PD Sharma, who was left out in the process, did not sign the official communiqué bearing the list of the best teachers recommended for the awards.

Documents reveal that as the selection process progressed, another jury came into being. Interestingly, the other jury, constituted to select the three best principals from the government colleges, also comprised the name of Hemant Verma, one of the awardees.

Of the three principals selected for the award, two were former principals. Nonetheless, both of them were jury members.

Another shocking aspect of the episode was that no specific criteria were laid down for the grant of the awards, which puts a big question mark on the entire selection process.

Just a couple of days prior to the Teachers’ Day (on which the awards were presented), Prasad commented in an official letter that “Selection of the best deserving teachers has always been a tricky issue. As has been seen (?), ACR is not the true reflection of somebody’s worth…”

However, when this communiqué reached the Education Minister, she asserted that she would like to see the record first.

Following that, on September 4, the authorities concerned maintained that the service records of the teachers, principals and officials (deputy directors) selected for the awards were got checked to the extent “that no inquiries or disciplinary action under Rule 7 and 8, no adverse remarks about integrity in the ACRs, no vigilance inquiry and no punishment” existed in case of any of them.

Faridabad, December 27
Two “trafficking” victims, including a minor, have been rescued in the National Capital Region in the past 48 hours.

A 32-year-old woman of Morigaon district in Assam was rescued by a joint team of the Assam and Haryana police from a village in Rohtak district on Wednesday. A resident of Bongaigaon district had allegedly promised to get her married in Delhi. However, she was brought to Delhi and was “sold” for Rs 67,000. She was held captive and subjected to slavery and sexual exploitation at Balamba village in Rohtak. The woman managed to contact her family and she was rescued after a raid. A case has been registered at Morigaon.

In another incident, a 10-year-old girl, who is also from Morigaon (Assam), was rescued from a locality in Jaitpur here by the police and NGO Shakti Vahini. The NGO had received information that the girl was forced to do household work at a house owned by Nempal. A rescue team raided the house and rescued her. The girl said she had been brought there by her elder sister. The girl was produced before the Faridabad Child Welfare Committee after her medical examination. She was shifted to a children’s home and later handed over to the Assam police. 

SONEPAT, DECEMBER 27
Panic spread among the people following the leakage of compressed natural gas (CNG) from a pipeline near the local truck union office on the Sonepat-Bahalgarh road on the outskirts of the town today.

The pipeline, laid by Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) for supplying gas in residential localities of the town, was possibly damaged by a JCB machine deployed for repairing a drinking water supply pipeline.

On receiving information, the police, a fire brigade vehicle and GAIL officials reached the spot. The area near leakage was cordoned off and the supply of the gas in the pipeline was cut off from the control room near Biswan Meel.

Lalit Maurya, Chief Manager of GAIL, said the pipeline which was damaged around 12 noon was repaired by 3.30 pm. 

Ambala, December 27
Residents of Sectors 1, 7, 8 9, and 10 of Ambala City protested against the imposition of property tax and demanded a roll-back of the decision. They also raised slogans against the Commissioner of the corporation.

The residents submitted a memorandum to the Commissioner of the corporation. They said ivarious HUDA sectors had not yet been transferred to the corporation .As they had already been paying the charges for basic facilities like drinking water and sanitation to the HUDA authorities, the corporation should not levy any property tax on them.

Commissioner KM Pandurang, however, told them that they had to pay the property tax and there was no provision in the law to exempt them. When Sandeep Sachdeva, secretary of the Sector 7 Welfare Association, told Pandurang that the district court of Ambala had already issued an order in their favour in this regard, the Commissioner replied that the corporation had filed an appeal in the high court against this order.

Deciding against paying the property tax, the residents decided to move the court on the issue.

Chandigarh, December 27
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will lay the foundation stone for a nuclear research centre and a nuclear science university at Jassaurkheri village in Jhajjar district on January 3. He will also lay the foundation stone for a national cancer institute at the AIIMS-II in Badsha village on that day.

A press note stated that about Rs 400 crore would be spent on the construction of a nuclear research centre spread over 225 acres. It would be the first such centre in the world.

Sirsa, December 27
Union Minister for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Girija Vyas today said no political party except the Congress had ever thought of providing 'roti, kapda aur makaan' (food, clothing and shelter) to the poor.

She launched Rajiv Awas Yojna in Sirsa, under which the state government would construct 2,144 houses for the poor at a cost of Rs 95 crore.

She gave the credit for constructing 7,474 houses for the poor at a cost of Rs 744 crore under the scheme to Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. She handed over certificates of ownership to 10 poor women.

Praising the UPA government, Vyas said the Manmohan Singh government had provided the poor the right to food and employment and was giving them a roof over their head despite the economic slowdown.

She said UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had always thought of the welfare of the poor and the schemes could be possible due to their concern for the common man.

Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda said several projects had been approved for Haryana during the UPA regime at the Centre and the Hooda government in Haryana.

He said the Prime Minister would lay the foundation stones of the nuclear research centre and the nuclear science university at Jassaurkheri village in Jhajjar district on January 3.

Deepender Hooda further said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would lay the foundation stone of the national cancer institute at Badsha village the same day.

Deepender Hooda added that the Prime Minister would lay the foundation stone of the 2,800-MW Gorakhpur nuclear power project in Fatehabad district in the second week of January. Terming the houses being given as a ray of hope for the poor, Sirsa MP Ashok Tanwar said each house had a market value of between Rs 15 lakh and Rs Rs 20 lakh. Haryana minister Savitri Jindal also spoke.

Chandigarh, December 27
The state School Education Department today directed private schools to display information on availability of seats for admissions on their website as well as on the school notice board by December 31. "This will be applicable to schools which have been allotted land by the Haryana Urban Development Authority or other authority which makes it mandatory for them to admit a certain percentage of children in concessional mode," he said. — PTI

Yamunanagar, December 27
A person was allegedly beaten to death by his brother here on Friday evening. The police have booked the accused for murder and rounded him up.

As the victim’s kin were making preparations for cremating the body, it was taken into possession by the police and sent to the local Civil hospital for a post-mortem. The police said Kamal beat his brother, Naresh Kumar (50), to death this evening following an altercation.

Naresh Kumar (50) was not able to do any work as he had been ailing for long. It often led to an altercation between both brothers. Ashok Sabharwal, DSP, said Kamal had been booked for murder charge on the complaint of the deceased’s daughter. 

Yamunanagar, December 27
A woman succumbed to her injuries at a private clinic after a miscreant pressed her neck in an attempt to snatch her earrings here yesterday.

Karam Chand, the deceased's son told the police that his 52-year-old mother Jarnelo Devi of Mumidi Colony, who was suffering from asthma, had gone to a private clinic in Jammu Colony to get herself checked.

On the way to the clinic, her neck was pressed by a miscreant to snatch her earrings. The attacker fled the spot after snatching her earrings.

Though she managed to reach the clinic and inform the doctor, she succumbed to her injuries.

The body was handed over to the woman's kin after a post-mortem today. The police have booked the attacker for murdering the woman.