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School dropout cases on rise
Negligence blamed for blast in car
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Better
bathinda: State of libraries — I
Govt departments asked to enroll more young voters
Tulsi had its origins in North-Central India, says research
Separate ministry sought for general categories
Lack of unity kills spirit of any movement: Freedom fighter
Playway school students celebrate Holi
TASTE
BUDS
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School dropout cases on rise
Bathinda, March 16 In a joint statement released here today, leaders of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee Gurpreet Singh Kangar, Ajaib Singh Bhatti, Joginder Singh Panjgrain, Harminder Singh Jassi, and others stated that despite the fact that the Bathinda and Muktsar districts have been receiving all the attention of the ruling Badal family and a major share of the state revenue, the two districts have the highest dropout cases in the state. The Bathinda District Education Officer (secondary education), Harkanwaljeet Kaur, however, contested the claims of the Congress leaders. “The information collected, is not totally indicative about the dropout cases. Since the information has been furnished by the office of the Director General of School Education, it covers only government senior secondary schools located in the district,” she said. “The data should be seen under the light of the fact that the government opened several Adarsh and model schools in the backward areas and several students of the government schools have enrolled themselves in these schools. So, the fact that the student dropout rate of the government school has risen in the district, is also indicative of the fact that a majority of these students shifted to Adarsh and Model schools,” she added. As per the data received under the RTI Act, the dropout rate at the secondary level in Bathinda district increased to be recorded at 8.59 per cent in 2013-14 as compared to 2.91 per cent in 2009-10. Although the dropout rate in Muktsar, 9.75 per cent, was the highest for the year 2013-14, the district has progressed since the rate was recorded at 11.66 in the year 2009-10. Among the other districts that made significant progress in the field are Ferozepur and Sangrur. While in Ferozepur, the dropout rate decreased from 25.14 per cent in 2009-10 to 4.66 per cent in 2013-14, in Sangrur, it decreased from 20.84 per cent to 6.13 per cent. Congress leaders alleged that despite all tall claims of the Badal family, the trend was alarming and indicative of the fact that the development model being followed by the Badal government was flawed.
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Negligence blamed for blast in car
Bathinda, March 16 Though the police is yet to reach at any ‘logical’ conclusion over the exact cause of the blast and consequent injuries, sources told the Bathinda Tribune that use of illegal an electric machine while using a cell phone to transfer the LPG into the gas kit of a Maruti Zen car, had led to the incident. “A customer arrived in the morning to get the cap of gas kit in his Maruti Zen Car, repaired. The workers in the car workshop had just lit up a flame in a small wooden temple inside the shop,” said a car mechanic of a nearby shop. He added that the car owner informed the mechanic that there is hardly one and-a-half litres of gas inside the tank and that it was almost exhausted. “Taking it lightly, one of the young mechanics tried to clean the surface of the duct of the gas kit using a rag. In the meantime, the remaining gas started oozing out. The person cleaning the kit got a phone call on his cell phone and he got busy in the conversation,” the mechanic added. He pointed out that as the inflammable gas started accumulating in the workshop, it immediately came in contact with the flame. Since the car was parked inside the workshop the gas being emanating from it led to the blast. “Some passersby had just informed about the mechanics in the shop about the foul smell emanating out from the workshop. In the meantime, the mechanic who was on phone took out a fire extinguisher when suddenly the blast occurred. “We have earlier, too, informed the mechanic not to light up the flame every morning in view of the gas work he is dealing every day. But he would usually reply that what has to happen, will happen,” the mechanic informed. He pointed out that the policemen, intelligence officials and the media barged into the shop and took stock of the situation. But the exact reason behind the blast will be revealed after a couple of days. The police have already registered a case under various Sections of the IPC at the Civil Lines Police Station. SHO Angrez Singh said all the three injured are still undergoing treatment and their statements would be registered once they are declared fit by the doctors.
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Better
bathinda: State of libraries — I 
The city of budding doctors and engineers desperately needs funds for proper maintenance and renovation of its libraries that cater to the intellectual and academic needs of its residents. Bathinda Tribune tries to go into the root of the issueMegha Mann Tribune News Service
Bathinda, March 16 The city has Satya Pal Azad Memorial Public Library near Gole Diggi, Lala Sant Ram Memorial Library housed in a small government quarter in the Civil Station area and the District Library at the Zila Parishad office. Except Satya Pal Azad Memorial Library, the other two face problems of less number of books and inadequate staff. As per rules, the Municipal Corporation has to fund and run a public library that comes under its jurisdiction. While the Municipal Corporation Bathinda (MCB) does not have any library, it used to run a reading room near Annapurna Mandir on Amrik Singh Road. Besides this, the MCB pays for the newspaper bills of Lala Sant Ram Library, Goodwill Society’s Library in Paras Ram Nagar area and at the Rose Garden. Two years ago, this MC reading room was converted into a rain basera (night shelter home), after the Supreme Court of India issued directions that for a population of 1 lakh there should be at least one night shelter home. “We had constructed a night shelter home on Mal Godam Road near the railway station and also decided to convert the MC reading room into second such home,” said the MCB officials. Satya Pal Azad Memorial Public Library located near Gole
Diggi
Started in a small room in Sirki Bazar in 1938, the library was shifted to its present location in late 1950s in 3,000 sq yards area. Erected on the MCB land, which has been given on lease, the library has 56,000 books, including 6,000 in Urdu and the rest in Hindi, English and Punjabi. Besides being a reading den for the young and the old alike, the library is also a meeting point for the intellectuals of the city. It also runs projects like social library wherein every year theatre workshops are conducted for school students and book fairs are
organised. “With the passage of time, the elderly have shifted more towards newspapers and magazine reading while the youngsters focus on course-oriented books,” said president of the managing committee, Dr Harbinder Singh
Dhaliwal. It is this shift in taste for books that prompted the library management to buy more course-oriented books and an elaborate edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Besides voracious newspaper and magazine readers, the library is frequented by the students looking for a peaceful atmosphere to study. The library is seen as a place where students have studied and reached the zenith of their careers. The library is visited by medical, commerce as well as students of other disciplines. With a nominal annual membership of Rs 300, the library has around 3,500 registered readers. Without any fixed source of income, besides the membership fees, the library largely depends on donations from various quarters. “Keeping in view the way the library is being managed and the way it is a sole entity catering to the intellectual needs of people, the government should give us some regular grant. Earlier, the MCB used to give us a meager grant of Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000 per year, which stopped in 2005,” said secretary Kuldeep
Dhingra. The library management is working on digitising the titles of all 56,000 books and putting them in an electronic kiosk at the entrance. The new touch screen facility would help readers know the availability of books at the touch of a finger. Only 25 per cent of the Hindi titles and all Urdu titles are pending under this new project. “We urgently need someone with knowledge of Urdu to help us sort out our Urdu titles, which I am sure are an asset for the city,” said Dr
Dhaliwal. Lala Sant Ram Memorial Library
Named after freedom fighter Lala Sant Ram, the library is housed in a small quarter (T4) in the Civil Station area. Being run since the demise of Lala Sant Ram in 1980, the library has just 600 books. The library serves more as a reading room for the handful of its members. The library was earlier housed in 2,000 sq yards T9 quarter, which has now been demolished. It was the place where Lala Sant Ram passed away. Its president, Yashpal
Bansal, who is a nephew of Lala Sant Ram, said it was hard to run the library due to shortage of funds. The library management members, many of whom have retired from their jobs, contribute to keep it running.
Bathinda Deputy Commissioner had twice promised books worth Rs 25,000 for the library, but none has been received yet. Numerous reminders and requests have all gone in
vain. Bansal said as per rules, the library was entitled to 20 newspapers, but got only eight. “We have around 600 books but no librarian or storekeeper to issue or maintain them. We should be given some funds so that at least our reading room is maintained. We should get more magazines as we have a lot of people coming to read newspapers and magazines,” he said. District Library in the Zila Parishad complex
The district library in the Zila Parishad complex is in its worst form. Running without a librarian for the past more than three years, the library has just two class four employees. One of the class four employees retired last week and was granted an extension. Principal of Government Rajindra College
(GRC), Vijay Goel, who has been appointed as the Drawing and Disbursal Officer
(DDO) of the library, said he had written to the state government demanding to fill vacant seats of librarian and restorer, so that the place could be run properly. Currently no books are being issued from the library and no one is aware of the exact number of books it contains. |
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Govt departments asked to enroll more young voters
Bathinda, March 16 In a press releases here today, the District Election Officer-cum-Deputy Commissioner Kamal Kishore Yadav said the higher education department has been directed to associate process of admission to colleges with voter registration through designated officers. Similarly, in the technical institutes, form 6 for registration of new votes would be given along with the admission forms. Designated officers will fill these forms and submit to the concerned officers. The civic bodies department will spread awareness as well as put up signboards informing about different polling booths. Similarly, the agriculture department has been asked to inform students undertaking agriculture courses to get themselves enrolled as voters and same awareness should be created in training camps also. The cooperative department has been asked to identify those members who are still bereft of being enrolled as voters. It has also been asked to submit a list of such voters to the district Election Office. The Nehru Yuva Kendra has been asked to ensure that all the eligible voters in its contact are duly enrolled and will partner with the district election office for motivating youngsters. Similarly, the NSS, NCC, labour and employment department, financial institutions, woman and child development officer, the Health Department and Civil Supplies Department will ensure that all the bodies, individuals, employees and dealers associated with it are registered as voters. They will also display the election material motivating youngsters. The youth welfare services, sports and cultural department have been asked to conduct street plays with the help of professional cultural groups. The state livelihood mission and water and sanitation mission will create awareness amongst its members. Communication centres such as Doordarshan, All-India Radio and other government mass communication institutions will ensure that all SVEEP activities reach out to public.
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Tulsi had its origins in North-Central India, says research
Bathinda, March 16 The research paper, published in a leading international journal "The Scientific World Journal" recently established for the first time the origin of Tulsi, also known as the queen of herbs. Till now, its origin was not known though the Hindu mythology claimed that the plant was found in the mythical churning of the sea (Sagar Manthan). Another legend claimed it was the reincarnation of a gopi in love with Lord Krishna. The researchers, Dr Felix Bast, a plant phylogeneticist, who was recently awarded with the INSPIRE Faculty award (by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India) and holds a PhD from Japan, Pooja Rani, an MPhil student at the university and Devendra Meena, a former MPhil student (CSIR-JRF scholar) at CUP and currently a PhD student at Oxford University, UK, have claimed in the research paper that this is the first time the origin of the plant has been established. The authors of the study said the finding was interesting as this region had played an important role in religious and cultural uprising of India. For the study, the scientists collected samples of the plant from various locations across the Indian subcontinent, including the garden of Durga Mandir at Model Town in Bathinda, and compared the DNA sequences of a slow-evolving genomic region, a standard approach in a scientific discipline called "phylogeography". Scientists then used computational bioinformatics for extensive analysis of the DNA sequences to conclude about the North-Central origin of Tulsi in India. With the university having its own latest DNA sequencer and avant-garde bioinformatics workstations, the entire work was done in Bathinda. A number of recent biochemical and physiological studies indicate that this plant has antidiabetic, antimicrobial, anticancer, adaptogenic, and radioprotective properties, the study noted. The researchers said they wanted to know if the plant found all around belonged to one species. The research paper underlined that while information on the plant's medicinal properties was readily available (with more than 400 articles available at the NCBI-PubMedDatabase), relatively less literature was available regarding the diversity of this plant around the world.
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Separate ministry sought for general categories
Bathinda, March 16 While presiding over a meeting of the federation here today held at the Teachers’ Home, state organiser, GCWF, Punjab, Shyam Lal Sharma said a policy which was intended to continue for 10 years only has failed to yield satisfactory results in eyes of government. He said successive governments had been discriminating against the general categories as no department, board or committee had ever been established to work for the welfare of these people. Hardships of life and lack of resources were not bound by caste constraints, as was struck into the minds and psyche of the political leaders. All the castes and categories had its own set of people who were fighting a everyday battle for survival, he said. The federation had been asking the state government to establish a separate department headed by a separate minister for the welfare of the general categories as had been established for the welfare of other sections. He added that the federation was mustering support so that the government could be pressurised to end reservation in promotions and in no case, quota should be more than 14 percent. He said that the government was duty-bound to collect irrefutable, quantifiable numerical data to establish backwardness, inadequacy of representation and overall maintenance of efficiency if reservation in promotion was to be given. The federation has decided that memorandums listing demands for the welfare of general categories would be given to all the candidates contesting the Lok Sabha elections in Punjab. Among those who attended the meeting included Karnail Singh Sidhu, SP Goyal, Gurinder Singh, Rattan Sain Garg, Iqbal Singh, Sarabajit Singh, Sikander Singh, Rajiv Dutt, Baljit Singh, Gudeep Singh, HKS Gill, Vinod Garg and Jant Singh.
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Lack of unity kills spirit of any movement: Freedom fighter
Bathinda, March 16 Dhaliwal was at a function in the city for unveiling the bust of Bhagat Singh installed at the Public Library. Dhaliwal, who was among the Royal Indian Army jawans, who led the rebellion after Second World War in Europe, was awarded Tamra-Patra (citation) in 1970. Reminiscing the time when Dhaliwal and his colleagues in the Royal Indian Army Supply Corps (RIASC) declared mutiny demanding freedom for nation, said, “Those were the times when people kept aside their differences and fought for a common cause. These times have changed a lot. Today, only a handful of people with vested interests lead a mob, which is largely unaware of the issue they are being herded for,” he said. After being court martialed in 1946, Dhaliwal was lodged in the Ambala jail with Bhagat Singh’s sister Amar Kaur, who was accompanied by her young son Jagmohan Singh. “Since all the mutineers were lodged together in the same jail, the jail authorities later decided to divide and shift us to different jails. After that I was transferred out of the Ambala jail while Amar Kaur was left there,” he said. The Government of India initially refused to consider Dhaliwal a freedom fighter stating that he was a mutineer. It was only after a long battle and sustained efforts that Dhaliwal could be enlisted amongst the freedom fighters of the country. Having worked hard for the nation, Dhaliwal now feels let down by the Punjab Government that harasses the elderly freedom fighters in the name of giving them medical aide. Dhaliwal underwent a surgery at DMC Hero Heart Hospital in Ludhiana in 2012. Despite running from pillar-to-post, his Rs 1.75 lakh bill has not been reimbursed yet. “This is how the country pays back its freedom fighters and respects its elderly,” said Dhaliwal, whose father Bahadur Singh too contributed to India’s struggle for freedom. He was part of the Jaito Morcha.
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Playway school students celebrate Holi
Bathinda, March 16 The students were accompanied by their mothers and the event marked the celebration of the festival and the mother-child bond. The tiny-tots danced and presented a stage show. While the children played with colours with their friends, their mothers participated in fun games. Principal of the school, Ruby Gupta, was also present during the celebrations. Aklia Group of Institutions also organised a function to celebrate the festival of colours on
its campus. The students and faculty members participated in the celebrations. The students also presented giddha and participated in games. The students also used paper sheets to make wall art. |
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BUDS Here, savour highly nutritious grains roasted in traditional oven Gurdeep Singh Mann Tribune News Service
Bathinda, March 16 Known for being highly nutritious, the small bhattis in the city are quite popular among people who prefer healthy food to the maida-based junk available at restaurants and eating joints. A flurry of activity is witnessed every day, usually in the morning, at the two bifurcated shops of a single family, which caters to the needs of city residents looking for healthy food. Though the shops appeared a little unhygienic, however, the food being offered was quite healthy, its owners said. “There was a time when people used to bring their own grains for roasting in the bhatti (furnace). But now people do not have enough time for all this. They just buy food items from numerous shops selling roasted edibles in the city,” said Sandeep Kumar, one of the two partners of the six decade old shop. He said their bhatti (furnace) used to run for the whole day in the ‘good old days’, but now it was in use from 6 am to10 am. During winter, the working hours are stretched to 5 pm in the evening. Apart from other roasted items, gur (jaggery) coated chana is also sold at the shops. Sandeep said there was a time when people used to wait for hours to get their foodstuff (peanut or popcorn) roasted in a natural style at the bhattis. “But now, electronic gadgets have replaced the vintage bhattis. These days just a few people are left who want naturally roasted grains. Nonetheless, we have tried to continue the legacy of our ancestors,” said Sandeep’s brother, Raj Kumar. People, who are aware of the old bhattis in the Mata Rani Wali Gali, regularly visit the place to purchase fresh foodstuff. Raj Kumar said residue of wood was used to roast chana, dal, popcorn and other items. “The quality and taste of the food roasted on the residue of wood is quite different from the one prepared on LPG gas flames or in electric appliances,” he said. Listing the benefits of roasted grains, he said these grains were easily digestible and high on nutrition. “The gur coated chana is extremely helpful to anemic patients while hard grains are recommended for children to help them easily shed their milk teeth. Slowly people are turning to the traditional food and giving up junk food,” he said.
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Use of cell phone and negligence, while working, is said to be the chief reason behind the incident of car blast on the Bibiwala Road.
Bathinda is called the nursery of doctors and engineers, which after Kota in Rajasthan, claims to have the highest number of students finding their way into engineering and medical colleges after studying at the coaching centres established here. Despite the tag of being a “nursery”, the city woefully falls short of dedicated libraries to satiate the intellectual needs of its residents.
The traditional style of roasting chana (gram), dal (lentils), bhutta (popcorn) and mungfali (peanut), is still in practice at the six decades old bhatti (furnace) located in Mata Rani Wali Gali at the backside of Bahia Fort on the Mall Road.
The traditional style of roasting chana (gram), dal (lentils), bhutta (popcorn) and mungfali (peanut), is still in practice at the six decades old bhatti (furnace) located in Mata Rani Wali Gali at the backside of Bahia Fort on the Mall Road.