Ludhiana, January 17
Advocates staged a dharna outside the Police Commissioner’s office at the Mini-Secretariat here today.

Yesterday, the District Bar Association (DBA) had decided to gherao the office of the Commissioner of Police. The lawyers were demanding the shifting of “malkhana” as there was paucity of parking place.The advocate staged a protest in the morning and said the protest would continue till the shifting of the “malkhana”.

"We have been asking them to shift the “malkhana” and they have been giving us false assurances. Today, we have decided that we will not end the agitation till our demand is met," said the group of advocates.

Later in the evening, agitating lawyers gheraoed Commissioner of Police Nirmal Singh Dhillon.

The Commissioner of Police has sought some time from the lawyers for relocating the “malkhana”.

Dhillon tried to convince the agitating lawyers and said, "I was also a lawyer before I joined the police department. I was practicing in the Ludhiana courts. Give me some time to make adequate arrangements," The advocate decided that the protest would continue till their demand was met. Sources said the advocates were planning to protest on a larger scale tomorrow. The DBA president Parupkar Singh Ghumman, vice-president Gurdeep Singh Salh and other office-bearers expressed their resentment.

Ludhiana, January 17
The state-level volleyball championship began at Punjab Agricultural University Model Senior Secondary School today.

As the multi-purpose hall of Guru Nanak Stadium is in need of repairs, organisers chose to hold the event on the school ground.

Office-bearers of the Punjab Volleyball Association said only a few districts had volleyball courts. They said such events could not be organised without government aid.

Naresh Pathak, joint secretary of the association, said: “Inclement weather will affect the performance of players. The government should upgrade infrastructure before organising such events."

“Earlier, the Punjab Government used to give associations Rs 10,000 each, but now things have changed. The state team has won several championships," said Pathak. “The focus of the Punjab Government is only on kabaddi. The game cannot be played on a ground." He government shouldprovide finds for the game.

Ludhiana, January 17
Travellers on the Amritsar-Ludhiana-New Delhi and Jammu-Ludhiana-New Delhi trunk routes remained at the receiving end as most of the trains were late by two to four hours.

Those manning the enquiry counters at the railway station were in a fix over the arrival and departure timings of the delayed trains. It was stated that 12460 Amritsar-New Delhi Inter-City Express was late by 4.50 hours while 12497 New Delhi-Amritsar Shane-Punjab and 12498 Amritsar-New Delhi Shane-Punjab were late 3.05 hours and by 2.40 hours, respectively. The New Delhi-Amritsar Shatabdi and 12037 New Delhi-Ludhiana Shatabdi were delayed by 50 minutes and 1.20 hours, respectively. Two other trains on the route, 12459 New Delhi-Amritsar Inter-City and 14681 New Delhi-Jalandhar Inter-City were also running behind schedule by 1.15 hours and 2.25 hours, respectively.

Railway officials said 12413 Ajmer-Jammu Puja Superfast Express (6.10 hours), 18101 Tatanagar-Jammu Muri Express (6.30 hours), 14051 Delhi Anand Vihar-Jammu Express (3 hours), 15653 Guwahati-Jammu Amarnath Express (7.30 hours), 15707 Katihar-Amritsar Amrapali Express (5.45 hours), 12471 Mumbai-Jammu Swaraj Express (2.05 hours), 12919 Indore-Jammu Malwa Express (3.25 hours), 14674 Amritsar-Jaynagar Shaheed Express (3.15 hours) and 11057 Mumbai LTT-Amritsar Dadar Express (2.35 hours) were delayed.

Ludhiana, January 17
A day after the DNA samples of the girl child matched that of her parents, nurses and the Class IV employee demanded registration of a counter case against the biological parents of the child.

The Nursing Staff Union of the Civil Hospital handed over a memorandum to Senior Medical Officer RK Karkara and sought the return of four employees who were transferred after the registration of a kidnapping and child swapping case against them. Three nurses and a Class IV employee of the hospital were transferred on October 7.

Members of the union said the gynaecology department of the hospital was being run by staff nurses as doctors and specialists remained absent during crunch hours.

The members said the hospital was grappling with staff crunch. The issue was brought to the notice of the Senior Medical Officer a number of times, but to no avail, they stated.

Dr Tashinder Goel, Dr Malvinder Mala and Dr Harpreet Singh, who had conducted the probe, stated that three staff nurses Neelam, Bhupinder and Palwinder Kaur had listed female child as a male child in the delivery register.

Ludhiana, January 17
Employees of the civic body may call off their stir as the Mayor has assured them of fulfilling their demands.

For the past several days, the employees have been on a strike. They want that the FIR against their colleagues should be quashed and vacant posts be filled.

On January 11, a sewer man, Surinder Kumar, died while clearing a choked sewer in the Abdullapur Basti area of the city. After the incident, a case under Section 304 A of the IPC was registered against the Ludhiana Municipal Corporation’s junior engineer Surjit Singh and SDO Ranjit Singh. Since then, the employees of the B&R branch and the O&M branch have been protesting. Later, the ministerial staff, too, joined the strike.

As the work is suffering, the senior officials want to resolve the issue.

The employees are demanding that the vacant posts of technical as well as ministerial staff be filled.

As per information, 200 posts of clerical staff and 83 posts of inspector have been lying vacant for the past several years. Besides, 20 posts of junior engineer (JEs) and eight posts of SDO are to be filled in the operations and maintenance branch.

In the B&R branch, 17 posts of JE and 38 posts of SDO are lying vacant. The sanctioned strength of the staff is 27 and 48, respectively.

Sunil Kumar Sharma, general secretary, Municipal Corporation Engineers Association, Punjab, said they held a meeting with Mayor Harcharan Singh Gohalwaria at his camp office this evening.

"The Mayor has assured us that an advertisement will be published by Monday. If it happens, we will end our stir. We will hold a meeting on Monday," he said.

Ludhiana, January 17
The action of the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) to close 51 units of electroplating, pickling and phosphating in the city has drawn severe criticism from the industrial organisations.

The Industry termed the raids by the PPCB as unjustified. It claimed that the Board announced January 31 as the last date for obtaining NOC/consent but did not give time to these units to remove discrepancies and get NOC/consent before disconnecting their power connections.

Gurpargat Singh Kahlon and Ranjodh Singh, the president and the general secretary of Auto Parts Manufacturers Association (India), respectively, called the step of the Board as unjustified and unwanted. "The PPCB took a harsh step of penalising 25 units on the spot and disconnecting their power connections. The Board has also sealed 26 units," said Kahlon.

Kahlon said these 51 units were already badly hit by economic recession and the move only worsened their problems.

Mohan Singh Bhambra, the finance secretary of the association, pleaded that when the Punjab Government, under the Master Plan for the city, had notified and allowed that industrial units in mixed land use area could operate till 2018, why were the industrial units being harassed by the PPCB. The government should intervene and rescue the industry.

Ludhiana, January 17
Around 200 students from government schools were made to bear the biting cold for about two hours waiting for a ceremony, which took barely two minutes.

The occasion was flagging off of an anti-copying awareness campaign and rally by chairperson of the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) Tejinder Kaur Dhaliwal. The District Education Department and the PSEB jointly organised the event.

Deepti, a government school student, said she arrived at the venue at sharp 9:30 am and the students had to stay there for about two hours till the rally was flagged off.

The rally aimed at generating awareness that copying during the Board exams will not be tolerated and transparency had to be maintained at all costs.

Interestingly, the authorities only invited government schools to the rally while affiliated schools where about 110 centres are set up for Board exams were left out.

Surjit Kaushal, a member of the Joint Action Committee of Affiliated Schools here, said they were not invited either to attend the rally or the seminar being held at Katani today. "How will we know what the authorities want and what they wish to convey unless we are a part of such an important event,” asked Kaushal.

Meanwhile, PSEB chairperson Tejinder Kaur Dhaliwal said the duty schedule of the supervisors and superintendents would be changed this time to bring in more transparency.

Those who were assigned one centre for a long time will now be shifted to another. The teams of flying squads will be constituted by the Board but they would be assigned duties by district education officers.

Dhaliwal said in case students found their examination centre too far, the authorities could be informed so that they could be allotted some other centre.

Earlier, the Board had decided to hold the second exam from 2:45 pm to 6:15 pm. However, following a request made by the female staff, the timing was changed to 2 pm to 5:15 pm.

Ludhiana, January 17
The Sarv Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamic Shiksha Abhiyaan (RMSA) teachers will hold a zone-level rally at Ropar on January 19.

Resentment prevails among teachers against the dilly-dallying tactics adopted by the state government in regularising their services.

The district president of the SSA/RMSA/CSS Teachers' Union, Ram Bhajan Chaudhry, said for the past several years, teachers were struggling to get regularised in the department. However, the state government was only handing out assurances, which had not been met till date, he added.

"There is great unrest among teachers. To wake up the government from its deep slumber, we are holding a rally at Ropar on January 19. We will intensify the agitation in case the government fails to meet our demand," stressed Chaudhry. — TNS

Ludhiana, January 17
Factionalism in the Congress once again came to the fore as the chief of the District Congress Committee, Ludhiana (urban), Pawan Dewan, and MLA Bharat Bhushan Ashu, along with their supporters, held a chakka jam at different places.

The Congress is a divided house, with both the groups led by Ashu and Dewan skipping the programmes organised by the other group.

Last August, Ashu had skipped the Ludhiana FM launch by Congress MP and Union Minister Manish Tewari, who is said to be close to Dewan. The MLA had stated that he had some party-related issues that remained unattended and the MP (Tewari) had ignored those issues.

The new appointments in the executive committee of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee have only widened the differences between the two groups, with some leaders alleging that one group has been favoured at the cost of the other.

Even the Mahila Congress in the district is a divided house, with the rural and urban wings choosing to play solo when it comes to the programmes organised by the Mahila Congress. In the latest instance, the rural and urban wings held protests against the state government on the drug scandal issue. Sources said the leaders from both the wings did not see eye to eye and they were reluctant to attend the programmes organised by the other wing.

Tewari has been reiterating publicly that fissures in the party have cost it dear in the past. No party has the power to defeat the Congress. The Congress defeated itself in the Assembly poll, he said.

Dewan could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.

Ludhiana, January 17
Industry representatives have alleged harassment at the hands of Municipal Corporation (MC) saying that the MC is unnecessarily charging change of land use (CLU) from them.

According to information, units need to obtain a change of land use certificate before applying for a new electricity connection. While the units falling under Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority (GLADA) do not have to pay for obtaining the same, however, units falling under the Municipal Corporation are charged for getting the certificate.

The president of Knitwear Club, Darshan Dawar, quoting a paragraph from the Industrial Policy said, “No approvals are necessary in case of land use from agriculture to industry in the area earmarked for industry in the master plan or other areas or where there are no master plans. There will be no change of land use charges and license fee for change of land use from agriculture to industry anywhere in the state.”

The general secretary of the Knitwear Club, Narinder Miglani, said Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority is observing the policies of the state government by exempting the industry from any charges for obtaining the change of land use.

Despite clear exemption from the change of land use charges, the Corporation is still charging money for issuing a certificate, said a small scale industrialist, Jagdish Mohan.

Members of the Knitwear Club met the Deputy Commissioner and submitted a memorandum in this regard.

Machhiwara, January 17
Residents of Machhiwara along with the family members of the youth who had died yesterday staged a dharna today.

The protesters sat with the body of the deceased on the Machhiwara-Samrala road near the police station and sought an immediate probe into the matter. They urged the authorities concerned to register a murder case against the employees of the wine contractor.

Baljit Singh (32), son of a famous Pehalwan Mulakh Raj of Machhiwara was injured on December 25 when he was allegedly chased by employees of wine contractor and his motor cycle hit a wall.

Family members of the deceased alleged that the employees of wine contractor had thrashed the youth resulting in his death. It was not an accident, said a family member.

The tension started brewing in the morning when family members, friends and relatives of the deceased assembled and forced shopkeepers to shut down the shops.

The DSP, Samrala, Jagvinder Singh Cheema, and SHO of Machhiwara pacified them and after a written statement registered a case of murder against five persons identified as Jarnail Singh, Dharam Singh, Bahadar Singh, Jagseer Singh and Shamsher Singh. It was only after that, that the body of the youth was cremated. 

Ludhiana, January 17
Yesterday’s incident where an elderly was slapped allegedly by the ACP took political hues today with Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari demanding strict action against the guilty police officer.

Tewari termed the incident as “disgusting and outrageous”. He condemned the humiliation and the beating that the man suffered just because he had protested the traffic blockade. “Is this the way they perform the sewa,” Tewari asked referring to the Akali-BJP government’s slogan “Raj nahi sewa”.

In a statement issued here today, the Minister said no matter what the provocation was, the police had no right to slap a man, who was in his sixties, and drag him to police station and then again humiliate him before forcing him to tender a written apology.

Seeking a strict action against the erring official, Tewari said, “The incident has shaken the city residents’ faith in the police.” — TNS

Ludhiana, January 17
The yesterday's slapgate has snowballed into a controversy. ACP (West) Dhruman Nimbale allegedly slapped a retired bank employee for taking a VIP route at Fountain Chowk.

Residents and politicians have resented the incident. Brij Bhushan Goyal, who was slapped, claims himself to be a staunch Gandhian and the ACP is from Ahmadabad, Gujarat, where Mahatma Gandhi gave his sermon on nonviolence.

A day after the incident, BB Goyal is yet to come to terms with the incident.

"I was slapped by the officer for voicing the concern of commuters stuck in traffic jam," lamented BB Goyal.

Yashpal Gosain, president, Ludhiana Foundry Cluster, condemned the incident. "It is unfortunate that such a senior man was publicly humiliated," Gosain said.

Teja Singh Dhaliwal, general secretary, Punjab Basketball Association, expressed shock over the slapgate. "BB Goyal had recently launched a signature campaign on drug menace."

Congress leader Ishwarjot Cheema said: "The officer has taken oath to serve people. There have been complaints that the officer is arrogant while dealing with public. We will raise the issue in the Vidhan Sabha and also try to pin down the government on the issue of harassment of commuters during the visit of VIPs."

Ludhiana, January 17
The district health department held a camp at Basti Jodhewal today to raise awareness about registration of eateries.

District Health Officer Dr Abnash Kumar said the last date for registration of eateries and seeking licence to run the food joints was February 4.

Owners of the unregistered eateries will attract a fine of Rs 5 lakh and imprisonment of six months. — TNS

Ludhiana, January 17
The CII-YI, Young Indians Ludhiana Chapter today initiated "Yi Cleanliness Drive" from Dandi Swami Chowk to Arya College of Women.

The main aim of the drive was to to inspire and motivate citizens to clean the city with the help of the Administration.

On the occasion of the National Volunteer Week, Yi Ludhiana Chapter, is committed to deliver a message among the masses to augment volunteerism in region.

The CII-Confederation of Indian Industry's Young Indians is observing National Volunteer Week from January 12 to 18.

The event was equally supported by Municipal Corporation, Ludhiana, A2Z Management, Rotary Club, Ludhiana Greater, PIFT-Pinnacle Institute of Fashion Technology and Aagaz Foundation.

More than 100 volunteers participated in the event. Students from Delhi Public School, BCM Arya, Punjab College of Technical Education, Pinnacle Institute of Fashion Technology also participated in the drive to aware the masses about the significance of maintaining cleanliness and hygiene. 

Ludhiana, January 17
A postage stamp on Food Corporation of India (FCI) was released by the postal department to commemorate 50 years of the organisation.

A postage stamp as well as the first day cover of the stamp was received at the head post office here.

The FCI has been instrumental in helping farmers as well as regulating the market price to provide food grains to consumers at a reasonable price for the last 50 years, said a philatelist, Mukesh. The stamp costs Rs 5, said the philatelist.

Ludhiana, January 17
The traffic police carried out an awareness march on Ferozepur Road today. As many as 100 traffic police personnel led by Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Gurdeep Singh started the march from the Police Commissioner's office and culminated it at PAU Gate No 2.

The ADCP said the drive was a part of the traffic awareness week. Harjeet Singh, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Traffic), stated that the department had organised street plays at the PAU auditorium.

Mayor Harcharan Singh Gohalwaria, teachers and residents attended the event. ADCP-IV Swapan Sharma was honoured for streamlining traffic in the city.

The police had recently launched an awareness campaign to sensitise residents about traffic rules. The police also organised a function at Punjab Agricultural University. Students of the CT Group of Institutes and government school presented a 'nukkad natak'. — TNS

Ludhiana, January 17
The 28th Coca Cola Jarkhar Sports Festival kicked off at Jarkhar on the Ludhiana-Malerkotla road, about 15 km from here, today.

A large number of spectators from different areas around the village turned up at the venue to watch the events on the opening day of the tournament. The sports festival is being organised by Mata Sahib Kaur Sports Club.

The main feature of the opening ceremony was unveiling of two life size statues of the Flying Sikh Milkha Singh and hockey legend Dhyan Chand. The statues were installed on both the sides of the gate of the main stadium at Jarkhar.

Legislator Darshan Singh Shivalik and environmentalist Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal along with Ashok Kumar, son of Dhyan Chand, were among other dignitaries present at the opening function.

A hostel set up for trainees at the Jarkhar Hockey Hockey Academy at the cost of Rs 1 crore was also declared open today.

A five-member delegation from Afghanistan Hockey Federation, including its vice-president Abdullah Noorstani, coach of the national hockey team Ishfaque Khan, Dr Iman Ahmed, captain of the hockey team, Mustafa Shahdat and Saboor Shanvari, also watched the proceedings on the first day of the tournament.

Results

Handball: Ludhiana bt Patiala, Gurdaspur bt Muktsar, Tarn Taran bt Sangrur, Amritsar bt Moga and Ropar bt Gurdaspur.

Basketball: Gymkhana Club bt Khanna, Army XI bt Punjab Police XI.

Hockey (senior boys): Corps of Signals, Jalandhar, bt State Power Corporation, Patiala; ITBP, Jalandhar, bt EME, Jalandhar, and BSF, Jalandhar, bt Akalgarh Academy.

Hockey (juniors): SGPC Academy bt Jassowal, Kila Raipur Academy bt Nabha Academy, Jarkhar Academy bt Sant Fateh Singh Academy, Dollan. Hockey (girls): Kairon Wing, Tarn Taran, bt Government Girls College, Ludhiana, and Shahbad Markanda Hockey Centre bt Yamunanagar XI.

Ludhiana, January 17
Local boy Rahul Kumar hogged limelight in the Punjab State Powerlifting Championship held on January 11 and 12 at Rajpura. He won a silver medal in the senior category.

Rahul's attempt of 97.5 kg lift fetched him the medal in the bench press event in the 66 kg weight category. Earlier, Rahul used to compete in the below 60 kg category and had established himself in the powerlifting field.

Last year, Rahul clinched a gold medal in the 60 kg group in the National Powerlifting Championship held in Ludhiana with a lift of 90 kg and his maiden participation in the senior category also began on a positive note as he finished among the first three position holders at Rajpura.

Parvesh Chander Sharma, winner of three gold medals in weightlifting during the Commonwealth Games at Auckland in New Zealand, Parveen Sharma, Strong Man of India, and Kawaljeet Singh, a star powerlifter of national repute who imparts training to Rahul, rate him as a great potential in powerlifting.

"Rahul is a good prospect to achieve dizzy heights and bring fame to the nation at internationallevel competitions," they opine.