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Rain submerges city, cheers farmers
Students suffer as guest lecturers protest
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Surprise checking in school by ZP chief
Records of machines go missing from Civil Hospital
Educationists worry over poor handwriting quality
Property tax: Court orders publication of public notice
Max Hospital launches pain clinic
Jan 25 to be observed as National Voters’ Day
Dy CM to hoist Tricolour on Republic Day
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Rain submerges city, cheers farmers
Bathinda, January 22 Interestingly, as per the agri-met department of PAU regional station, Bathinda, the rainfall didn’t add to the chill in the air. While on Tuesday, the minimum and maximum temperature were recorded at 9.5 and 16.2 degree Celsius, respectively, on Wednesday, the minimum temperature increased considerably to be recorded at 13.2 degree Celsius while the maximum temperature remained almost static at 16.5 degree Celsius. The wind velocity was recorded at 9 km per hour. Dr Rajkumar of the agri-met department of PAU said the rainfall was not seasonal and the region seldom received rainfall at the end of January. According to the latest weather forecast released by the station, the region may receive more rainfall in the next 24 hours. There is also the possibility of a rise in the minimum temperature and dip in the maximum temperature. As per the Indian Meteorological Department, Bathinda and its adjoining areas may experience thunderstorm accompanied by rain on Thursday while the city may experience clear sky over the next three days. Good news for farmers
According to agriculture experts, the rainfall had brought good news for the farmers. Chief agriculture officer Rajinder Singh Brar said the rainfall would bring respite from the dry cold wave and hence, was good for
the crops. “The rainfall has naturally watered the fields which needed a second round of irrigation. It has also brought respite from the dry and cold weather. After one more spell, the weather will open and will be followed by bright sunshine, which will be beneficial for the wheat crop which was reeling under prolonged dry cold wave,” he said. Waterlogging problem plagues residents
Showers led to water-logging in the low lying areas of the city today. All the main markets, GT Road, Ajit road, Power House road, 100 feet road and other pockets were almost submerged under rainwater. The Municipal Corporation Bathinda (MCB) employees were pressed into service and by evening, water was drained off from these areas. Already, the work on de-silting the main trunk sewer on GT Road is in progress, preparing the sewer pipes to meet with the demand of carrying rainwater and slush. Four machines have been put on work on the GT Road. Meanwhile, agriculturists say the showers are good for standing wheat and potato crop. |
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Students suffer as guest lecturers protest
Bathinda, January 22 With all the 35 lecturers boycotting the lectures on the second consecutive day, 280 lectures were not conducted in the college. Speaking to the Bathinda Tribune, principal of the college, Vijay Kumar Goyal, said, “The guest faculty members have chosen these days to stage a stir to bring the government under pressure since the elections are approaching. We have tried to reason out with them that they should not make the students suffer since this is the crucial time for students as the examinations are also approaching.” “The lecturers didn’t heed to our requests as the guest faculty lecturers have launched a state-wide stir. We have told them that they will be paid only till January 20, the last day when they took lectures in the college. They will not be paid salaries for the days they boycott the lectures,”
he added. The principal also said the college management was unable to ask other faculty members to take these lecturers since they also had packed schedules. Meanwhile, the guest faculty lecturers on stir refused to bend backwards this time around. “We had struggled in 2011 and the state government had to give in to our demands for a hike in our salaries and increment. In December 2011, the state government had announced that the guest faculty lecturers will be paid Rs 10,000 per month and will also be given annual increment of 10 per cent,” said Ritu Aggarwal, a guest faculty member at the Rajindra College. Ritu has been teaching botany in the college for the past four years. “The government had even released funds to all the 52 colleges to initiate the process. It’s been two years and we are still waiting for the hike in the salaries and the annual increment. Right now the agitations are being held at colleges but if the government doesn’t heed our demands, we will intensify the stir and stage a joint protest,” she added. Other agitators said the government had been extending step-motherly treatment towards them although they had workload equivalent to that of the regular staff members at the colleges. They also said instead of the college PTA funds be used to pay the guest faculty members, their salaries should be paid from the state treasury, as had been approved by the state government in December 2011. |
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Surprise checking in school by ZP chief
Bathinda, January 22 He appreciated the fact that despite bad weather, the principal and some of the teachers had reached the school well before time and the principal was engaged in getting the school premises cleaned. Maluka, however, took a serious note of the fact that some of the notebooks had not been checked for long. He noticed that the teachers had overlooked glaring mistakes in spelling and sentence formations in the ones that had been checked. He gave the faculty members a months’ time to get the pending works done and warned that such dereliction of duty would not be tolerated in the future. Maluka said low attendance and enrolment of students in schools located in villages was a matter of concern. Soon the village panchayats would be actively engaged to collaborate with parents and make sure that all the children in villages were enrolled in schools, he added. He said there was a need to make the villagers aware of various schemes in the education sector under which the children were being given education free of cost, along with uniforms, scholarships and several other benefits. Maluka agreed to the fact that the government schools were lacking in several infrastructural facilities like enough space and furniture. He said during checking of schools, the requirements of each school were being recorded and Zila Parishad would soon work towards upgrading these schools. Maluka said it was the responsibility of the teachers to make sure that the students were benefited by the education structure and not be promoted to the next class without required knowledge. |
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Records of machines go missing from Civil Hospital
Jalandhar, January 22 Also, some equipment has been confirmed to have fallen “dead” in the absence of repair work due to their non-accountability in any department. Following this, the Medical Superintendent ordered an inquiry into the case today and also directed the heads of various departments to make a fresh and updated inventory of all the equipment installed in their respective departments till date. Confirming this to Jalandhar Tribune, the Medical Superintendent, Dr Jagjeet Singh Cheema, revealed that the hospital inventories had not been updated for the past so many years. “We were not able to locate many equipment worth crores of rupees in the past few months. Most of the machines do not have any mention in the department in which they have been installed presently. There seems to be a huge chaos in the hospital inventory system for long. That is why a team has been constituted to investigate the matter along with making fresh inventory lists of all equipment installed in the hospital,” said Dr Cheema. However, sources at the hospital also revealed that equipment worth crores of rupees was lying “dead” in various departments of the hospital which could not be traced or accounted for in the absence of an updated inventory system. A prosthetic lab machine, worth Rs 2-3 crore which is used for making fixed teeth, dental crowns and bridges, is lying unused from the first day of its installation for the past 20 years due to some fault in it. However, a controversy related to this also includes the installation of an old faulty machine instead of the new one in connivance with a few of the officials of the Health Department. Also, a microscope is lying unattended in the eye department for the past few months. “We were not able to repair many equipment due to their non-accountability in any of the departments. We can see them lying openly, but could not relate them to their department concerned. Making a detailed inventory of all the hospital equipment from beginning is an uphill task, but will take care of many issues pertaining to the repair and maintenance work of these expensive equipment which could help poor people to get timely treatment at a very low cost,” said a member of the investigative team. |
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Educationists worry over poor handwriting quality
Bathinda, January 22 While the world celebrates International Handwriting Day tomorrow (January 23), educationists in Bathinda were of the opinion that there was a dire need to change the education system that had lost its creative touch and the margin for imagination. “Earlier, children used to write on slates. It was a time consuming task to apply fullers’ earth on slates and prepare them for the lessons next day. Since the alphabets on the slates were larger than the ones written in notebooks these days, more attention was paid to their contours and formation,” said educationist Paramjit Singh Ramana. He added the loads of lessons and increased syllabus had narrowed down the aspects of creativity and experimentation. “If you closely see the manuscripts of old Hukumnamas, you will notice that the letters are formed very intricately and every manuscript has a different kind of calligraphy. Today’s education system does not give enough vent to creativity,” he added. A lecturer at government school, Pushpesh Sharma, said the downfall of handwriting could be largely attributed to the more sources of entertainment available for children. “In the early 1980s till 1995, the only form of leisure or entertainment available was comics or drawing and painting. Children now have varied choices and hence are been drawn away from creativity,” he added. While the handwriting habits and quality are on decline, there are a few institutes in the city that help people to improve their handwriting. “Not only children, we have people as old as 60 years coming to us to improve their handwriting. People still have that yearning to improve the way they write and age is not any bar for them,” said Geeta Negi and Shelja Monga, who run an institute on improving handwriting, located at Bhagu Road. |
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Sikh bodies seek release of prisoners
Bathinda, January 22 United Sikh Fornt Movement’s general sceertary Gurdeep Singh Brar, Baba Hardeep Singh, Bhai Sukhwinder Singh Khalsa, Subedar Baldev Singh, Rajinder Singh Sidhu and others said Bhai Gurbaksh Singh had sat on fast unto death demanding the release of these prisoners. On the 43rd day of the fast, the Jatehdar
Akal Takht, Sant Samaj and Sangharsh Committee got Bhai Gurbaksh Singh’s fast discontinued on the promise that
the four Sikh prisoners on parole will be freed and need not go back to the jail. However, these prisoners were sent back to the jail on January 22 and other Sikh prisoners, too, have not been released. The members demanded freedom for the prisoners till February 20 failing which an agitation will be held on February 21. |
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Property tax: Court orders publication of public notice
Bathinda, January 22 Since it's a public litigation, the judge directed publication of a public notice inviting more people to join the petition. Rajneesh Rana, secretary general of LEAF, had filed a case against the District Collector alleging that his office was wrongly fixing the rates for land on whose basis property tax was paid. Rana said as per the information collected under the Right To Information (RTI) Act from the office of the District Collector it was learnt that the Punjab Government Revenue and Rehabilitation Department's notification issued to all the Collectors-cum-Deputy Commissioner on March 30, 2012 were directed to fix new property tax rates. Two days before the notification was issued, Deputy Commissioner summoned a meeting to fix the collector rates for the year 2012-13 wherein 46 officials of different departments were invited. In the meeting held on March 29, only 12 officials were present. In the meeting participants merely endorsed decisions already taken by Collector to enhance rates, irrationally and illegally without any discussion or deliberations, he said. The RTI information also revealed that the District Collector issued letter on April 4 to implement the rates from April 9 whereas according to law, the revised rates are to be declared a month before.This has resulted in an increase of collector rates from 60 to 206 per cent. — TNS |
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Max Hospital launches pain clinic
Bathinda, January 22 The team of pain specialists, led by Dr Narula will conduct OPDs on every Wednesday and Thursday from 9 am to 30 pm. The clinic will help in providing relief in short or long term pain such as cervical, heel, back, facial (trigeminal neuralgia), painless delivery, sciatica, post herpetic neuralgia etc. The clinic will
offer modalities in pharmacological treatment, interventional procedures, surgical procedures, physiotherapy and rehabilitation and psychotherapy. A check-up will be provided to patients at their first visit in the clinic where specialist will review pain problem and medical history, along with treatment plan, based on assessment. Depending on the case and condition of pain, further treatment will be started for patient, which may incorporate medications, interventional pain therapies and physiotherapy. |
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Jan 25 to be observed as National Voters’ Day
Bathinda, January 22 Awareness rallies would be held in different parts of the city that will move around through various parts and culminate at the multipurpose stadium. Besides this, the chief guest will address these rallies. Yadav appealed the representatives of different departments to ensure that maximum number of young voters are enrolled and participate in the rally. ADC (Development) Sonali Giri said the district’s election registration offices as well as the booth level offices will celebrate the day at respective polling booths too. |
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Dy CM to hoist Tricolour on Republic Day
Bathinda, January 22 Yadav said different contingents will participate in the parade and various departments will present tableaux with development as the core theme. School students will present PT show, patriotic songs, cultural items and giddha and bhangra on the occasion. He said families of freedom fighters and good workers of different departments will be honoured at the function. All the major roundabouts in the city would be decked up beautifully. Tri-cycles would be distributed to the needy. Full dress-rehearsal for the Republic Day parade will be held on Janaury 24 at the multipurpose
stadium. — TNS |
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