Bathinda, May 7
The row over shifting of a liquor vend from Jogi Nagar continued on Wednesday as the meeting between the Deputy Commissioner of Bathinda, Kamal Kishore Yadav, and a delegation of residents of the area remained inconclusive. The meeting was conducted in the presence of the officials from the Excise and Taxation Department, DSP Gurjit Singh Romana, SHO of the Canal Colony police station Gurpreet Singh and the liquor vend owners.

While the AETC wing claimed that the liquor vend was opened seven to eight years ago adhering to the excise policies, the Lok Janshakti Party state president Kiranjit Singh Gehri, who was present as a part of the deputation, said the residents of Jogi Nagar will not let the vend function.

Speaking to the Bathinda Tribune, Gehri said, “The area, where the vend is located, also comprises a vegetable market which is frequented by women of the area and also students who cross the vend on their way from schools and colleges. Residents of the area want it to be shifted to maintain law and order in the area.”

Levelling allegation on the district administration for not willing to listen to the residents and working under political pressure, Gehri said, “The district administration is working under immense political pressure since an Akali MLA has a stake in the liquor vend.”

Contesting the allegation, the DC maintained that the liquor vend was opened adhering to the policies and at the behest of the residents of the area, the administration will check once again if the vend was meeting all the guidelines and in case the vend owners are found to be flouting any of the guidelines, the law will take its course.

“The vend was opened seven to eight years ago. Acting on the complaint of the residents, we will measure the distance between the vend and vegetable market and temple to see if the distance is permissible,” the DC said.

Devinder Singh, general secretary of the Samaj Sudhar Sewa Society, stated he had appealed to the Excise and Taxation Department for shifting the vend and had also received an assurance from the department that the vend will be closed after March 31, but the same was not done.

Meanwhile, the vend which remained closed for two days and was opened today in the evening. Members of the Samaj Sudhar Sewa Society and the New Public Welfare Society held a dharna outside the vend.

Bathinda, May 7
In a shocking incident, an eight-month-old girl of Abbu Kotli village was allegedly raped by a man of the same village. The victim is undergoing treatment at the Civil Hospital, Gidderbaha.

In a complainant to the Rama police, the victim’s father reported that the accused took the girl with him on work at a brick kiln in Ablu village on April 15. There, his colleague Bhicha Singh raped his daughter when he was busy in work. When he saw Bhicha raping her, he immediately ran towards him, but the accused ran away. The little girl was found crying and bleeding profusely.

He went to the sarpanch of the village and told him about the incident. But the sarpanch told him to remain quiet as elections were on and the police would be busy. He told him that he will look after the matter after the elections and took the girl to a private hospital on the advice of the sarpanch. But the girl’s condition started deteriorating again on Monday. So, he took him to the Civil Hospital, Gidderbaha, and went to the police station to complain against the accused.

Investigative officer Kashmir Singh said they have booked the accused under Section 376 of the IPC. Kashmir also stated that the police raided the house of the accused, but couldn’t find him as he is at large.

Bathinda, May 7
Students of MA (Part 1) who went to take financial administration examination were shocked to see that the entire paper was out of syllabus. After complaints pouring in from, across the state, the university has postponed the examination and will reschedule the same tomorrow.

One of the students Mohit Kumar Garg, stated that while the title of the paper was right, none of the questions pertained to the syllabus.

“When we complained to the superintendent of examination, she asked us to write an application addressed to the Controller of examinations,Punjabi University, Patiala and walk out of the centre after half time. We wrote the application, signed it, and left the centre,” he said.

The paper was to be conducted from 2-5 pm and the students walked out at 3.30pm. The paper was to be attempted by private and distance learning or correspondence students. While the private students had to attempt the entire paper worth 100 marks, students who are pursuing the course through distance learning or correspondence course were to attempt questions worth 80 marks of the same paper.

One question each was to be attempted from Sections A, B, C and D carrying a weightage of 15 marks for private students and 12 marks for distance learning/correspondence students. From Section E, while the private students had to attempt all the 10 questions, the others were to attempt eight. All the questions of Section E were worth four marks each.

Bathinda, May 7
Members of the Democratic Teachers’ Front (DTF) today met the ADC Rajiv Parshar regarding the matter of discrepancy in the payment of remuneration to those on election duty in the Rampura segment. The ADC assured them that the pending amount will be transferred to their bank accounts.

Armed with a copy of the letter, issued by the Election Commission of India detailing the remuneration to be given to those on poll duty, the teachers pointed out that while the polling officers were to get a total amount of Rs 1,250 they got Rs 900 and the presiding officers who were to get Rs 1,750 got only Rs 1,450.

ADC Rajiv Parashar stated that he had forwarded their application to the authorities concerned and added that if the complaint about the discrepancy in the remuneration was found to be holding ground, the money will be transferred to their accounts within a week.

As per the ECI, a lump sum payment of Rs 1,500 for the sector officer/zonal magistrate, and per day payment of Rs 350 for the presiding officer/counting supervisor, Rs 250 for polling officer/counting assistant and Rs 150 for the class IV employee was to get Rs 350 per day.

The ECI had also directed that staff deployed at all the polling stations/counting centres may be provided with packed lunch and light refreshment at the rate of Rs 150 per head per day. In case of difficulty in providing packed lunch, a cash payment of Rs 1,500 per head per day may be made, it directed.

The discrepancy in payment of the poll duty remuneration was registered from only the Rampura Phul segment. The teachers also pointed out that since the polling parties were provided food, the authorities may have by mistake deducted the money from their total remuneration.

The polling officers were paid for rehearsal days, April 16, 20, 26 and polling days, April 29 and 30.

Bathinda, May 7
The district police have recovered many illicit bottles of liquor from two different places here on Wednesday.

In the first case, the Bathinda police have arrested Sandeep Kumar, a resident of Jassi Pao Wali village near Jassi Pao village itself. The police have recovered 12 bottles of countrymade mota santra khasa and 10 half bottles of Royal Stag. In another such case, the Bathinda police recovered seven country made motta santra bottles from Bhinder Singh of in Model Town area of the city.

The police have registered cases against the accused in this regard.

Bathinda, May 7
Shiromani Akali Dal and Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Harsimrat Kaur Badal advised the Congress and the People’s Party of Punjab candidate Manpreet Badal to get ready to accept his imminent defeat with grace and democratic dignity instead of making false excuses.

In a statement issued here today, Harsimrat said Manpreet had become frustrated because he feared defeat, as the people did not appreciate his blatant political opportunism and negative propaganda.

"The wise people of Bathinda have already given him a strong reply on April 30 and his defeat will be announced on May 16,” she added.

Commenting on Manpreet Badal’s repeated allegations of poll malpractices, she said when a person was going to lose, he always complained of booth capturing and malpractices and much more to save his face. So, Manpreet was also doing the same out of sheer frustration and for publicity, she added.

Instead of finding excuses, Manpreet would do better at making a serious effort in soul-searching by organising another Chintan Chhivar as he did after losing badly in the Vidhan Sabha elections.

Bathinda, May 7
Dr Felix Bast, assistant professor at the Centre for Biosciences, Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, has bagged a research grant of Rs 91.06 lakh from the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, under its “Drugs from Sea” programme. Co-PI of this project is Dr Vikas Jaitak, who holds a PhD from CSIR-IHBT, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh.

This is one of the major research grants the CUP has received till date. The grant will be utilised in carrying out research on anti-cancer drug development from marine algae for the next three years (2014-17). Two new-fully funded PhD studentships and one post-doctoral fellowship will be generated by this grant at the Centre. The grant will fund a research proposal titled: “Phylogenetic Selection of Target Taxa for Anti-Proliferative and Anti-Metastatic Marine Natural Products from Seaweeds of Indian Coast.” With over a million marine species of which more than 80 per cent are yet to be described, choosing target taxa for bioactivity profiling has been a daunting task. As per the available literature, all the previous studies were conducted at random; randomly selecting seaweed taxa for screening anticancer agents. A large number of (16,000) marine species were screened for anti-cancer potentials at the National Cancer Institute, the USA over a 22-year period (1960-1982), but the programme was subsequently abandoned as only a few chemical leads were discovered.

The present proposal deals with a new approach “phylogenetic selection of target taxa” which is inspired by the evolutionary theory. In brief, a number of investigations have revealed that bioactive substances (secondary metabolites) are synthesised by organisms as an adaptive strategy for differential reproductive success and ultimately for long-term evolution of the fittest populations. Evolution of bioactive substances are, therefore, most likely to be in parallel with the evolution of species themselves.

The proposed research is pertinent in local public health scenario, as a number of independent studies had revealed high breast cancer prevalence in the Malwa region of Punjab. A key step in the progression of cancer is metastasis-migration of cancer cells to the rest of the body whereby spreading the disease throughout (sarcoma), diminishing the chances of recovery and increasing the mortality.

Amritsar, May 7
The first open-heart surgery at a government health institution in Punjab was successfully conducted at Guru Nanak Dev Hospital (GNDH) here two days ago. Doctors said the patient was recovering well.

A team of doctors from the PGI, Chandigarh, had helped the GNDH team, led by Dr KS Sidhu, in carrying out the surgery. Dr Sidhu said, “It was like a dream come true. We have been working on this type of surgery for the past few years.”

Dr Sidhu said the ability to conduct open heart surgeries at government hospitals would be a boon for the patients who were unable to bear treatment expenses at private hospitals. “The cost of the surgery was around Rs 75,000. It is much less than the fee charged in private sector,” he said.

The hospital is also coming up with a cath lab to conduct all kinds of heart-related surgeries. Dr Sidhu said the patient, Ram Singh, had a hole in his heart.

College Principal Dr Santokh Singh said the college had received a grant of Rs 180 crore for the promotion of super speciality services at the institute under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) in 2009. The state government had also provided funds for the purpose, he added."The Punjab Government has recently signed an MoU with the PGI, Chandigarh, for assistance in open heart surgeries," he said.

He said under the MoU, a team of experts from the PGI would visit the hospital every fortnight. He congratulated the medical team at the hospital for the achievement.

Bathinda, May 7
Students of Baba Farid College (BFC) have secured 100 per cent result in MA (third semester) conducted by the Punjabi University, Patiala.

While Seema Rani has topped the list obtaining 72.5 per cent marks, Kulveer Kaur, Sandeep Kaur and Rajveer Kaur bagged the second positions with 70.5 per cent marks and the third position was bagged by Sandeep Kaur with 70.25 per cent marks.

While five students got more than 70 per cent, 13 students scored more than 65 per cent, whereas 24 students scored more than 60 per cent marks. Four students of Master of Arts (fourth semester) bagged the top four positions in the university merit.