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The Revolt of 1857
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Misbehaviour with Civil Surgeon
‘For city to rise, stabilise power hike’
Atta-Dal Scheme: Actual benefit in store for Blue Card beneficiaries
Health Dept to verify certificates
1,500 participate in WWF eco-quiz
Iron trader robbed off
Rs 6 lakh
Hyderabadi fest woos foodies
From Schools & College
‘Qayeda’ staged at Punjab Natshala
Indian killed in US robbery bid cremated
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Finally, martyrs’ souls to rest in peace
Ashes to be immersed in Ganga after performing all the rituals on Sunday Tribune News Service
Amritsar, August 23 According to Kochhar, the ashes of the martyrs will be immersed in Ganga after performing all the rituals on Sunday. The mortal remains of the martyrs were dug out by the committee in February this year. The historic well was located right under a gurdwara built at the site decades ago. To facilitate the excavation of mortal remains, the committee first constructed a new gurdwara building at the adjacent piece of land and shifted the gurdwara before starting the digging work. Around 90 skulls, 170 intact jaws, 26 skeletons joined with skulls and more than 5,000 teeth were recovered from the historic well. Apart from it, 70 Rs 1 coins of the East India Company dating back to 1830-40, two British medals, gold beads, three gold amulets, four rings, four bangles, a few bullets and other articles were also found from the well. The state government had sent a team of experts, following which a part of the mortal remains was taken to Chandigarh for carrying out DNA profiling on it. The gurdwara committee too had retained a part of the mortal remains which they intend to preserve and showcase in the museum that they plan to raise at the historic site. The gurdwara committee had also organised prayers in Ajnala on August 1 to pay tributes to the 282 martyrs, who were buried in the historic well during the 1857 mutiny. According to the gurdwara committee, around 500 soldiers raised a banner of revolt at the Mian Mir Cantonment in Lahore as a part of the 1857 uprising and swam across the Ravi to reach Ajnala. Out of them, 218 were killed by the British at Dadian Sofian village, near here, while the remaining 282 were incarcerated in a cage-like room where many of them died of asphyxiation. Following the orders from the then British Deputy Commissioner, Fredrick Cooper, the rest were shot dead before their bodies were thrown in a well which later came to be known as Kallianwala Khu as the British used to call Indians kale (black).
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Misbehaviour
with Civil Surgeon Tribune News Service
Amritsar, August 23 The representatives of the Health Employees’ Association demanded that the guilty persons should be arrested at the earliest. The employees also criticised the police for not providing security to the health team for conducting inspection at the hospital. Today, in a meeting of the representatives of the associations, including PCMS Officers’ Association, Civil Hospital Employees’ Welfare Association, Pharmacists Association, Sanitary Inspectors Association and Class Four Workers, threatened that they would shun work from Tuesday morning if the police fail to nab the attackers. Meanwhile, residents of Haripura locality, near Narang Hospital, blocked the road in protest and demanded cancellation of the FIR registered against hospital owner and the workers. Even as senior police officials went to pacify the protesters, who had blocked the road, still no arrests were made. While, the women protesters were seen showing shoes to a police official. The police had a hard time in persuading the protesters to lift the road blockade. The case
A team of the senior health officials, including Civil Surgeon Dr Rajiv Bhalla and District Health and Family Welfare Officer Dr Ranjit Singh Buttar, had gone to Narang Hospital on Thursday to check records pertaining to death of two pregnant women at hospital during the month of June. The supporters of the hospital owner, Ashwani Narang, had obstructed the team from entering the hospital and threatened them of dire consequences. The department had then formed a team to inspect the hospital on Friday but as the police failed to spare a team for security, the officials had to return. Meanwhile, Dr Madan Mohan of PCMS association and Rakesh Kumar of Civil Hospital Employees Association said the hospital was certainly involved in some illegal activity. So, they didn’t allow the team to inspect. The delay in inspection is helping hospital owner to erase the evidence and so the police should provide protection to the inspecting team in doing their duty, they said.
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‘For city to rise, stabilise power hike’
Amritsar, August 23 Besides, the owners of industrial units are also a harried lot in view of the hike in power tariff as they are already passing through a bad phase. Raman Gupta, general secretary, Trade and Industry Association Border Zone, said: “Instead of assisting the industry facing saturation in the state, the PSERC continued its annual hike spree.” He said long power cuts were imposed on the industry during the time of power scarcity. On the other hand, most of the raw material used in local industries comes from out of the state. The holy city is a manufacturing hub for textile, including shawl, blanket, tweed, blazer, suiting-shirting along with hardware such as screws, nuts, bolts, gold nose pins, rings, light engineering goods, fans, carpet, chess, rice shellers, plywood and handicrafts such as phulkari and embroidery. In this scenario, industrialists do not stand any chance to compete with their counterparts from other states. He felt that it was high time that the PSPCL must evolve a foolproof mechanism to curtail transmission and distribution losses, including theft of power. He said a couple of years ago, a study conducted by the National Applied Economic Research revealed that only 26 per cent of the households in Punjab received 18 hours of electricity against the national average of 57 per cent. A resident of Sultanwind road, Surjit Singh, a retired employee, said this time the government affected minimum hike of two per cent on domestic consumers. He added that under the current all-round inflation on essential commodities it was expected from the government to shield people from further rise on energy. Daniel B Das of Socio Economic Development Programme said the government was hiking per unit of power every year, which seemed to be an unending affair. He suggested that it was high time the government explored alternative cheap sources of energy to accelerate the progress of the state. He said the availability of cheap and abundant power supply would ultimately translate into minimising the investment cost. It would make the industrial and agriculture products cost-effective and their marketing would be easy across the country and overseas market for industrialists and agriculturists. A hotelier Satnam Singh Kanda said the hospitality industry continued to be clubbed under the commercial category. He said any hike meant that the expenses would increase. On the other hand, the competition was neck-to-neck in the industry.
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Atta-Dal Scheme: Actual benefit in store for Blue Card beneficiaries
Amritsar, August 23 District Food and Supplies Controller (DFSC) Dr Rakesh Kumar Singla said subsidised grain for the next six months i.e. from June to November would be released. He said the local department had got 15,000 tonnes of grain with it to distribute among the beneficiaries. Each inspector would be given at least 25 public distribution dealers to personally ensure the supply of grains. He added that the step was necessitated to prevent diversion and black marketing of grain. The exercise may take one month. On the delay in its distribution, Dr Singla said, “Firstly, the Election Commission prevented the distribution of ration supply ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Subsequently, partial supply of ration was carried out in April. However, the staff got pre-occupied in the procurement of the wheat harvest, which started late on April 30 this year.” Answering a query, Dr Singla said he could not comment over the status of pending ration and when it would be distributed. He added that the decision in this regard was taken at the headquarter level. Ahead of the general election, the SAD-BJP government had enrolled about 1.10 lakh new blue card holders. These beneficiaries would receive first lot of their supply this time. Before this, there were about 1.25 lakh blue card holders in the district. Under the scheme, each card holder is entitled to wheat at Rs 1 per kg and dal at Rs 20 per kg. The maximum monthly limit of 35 kg for wheat was fixed per person. The limit for dal was pegged at 2.5 kg per household. During the past six months, these beneficiaries received supply of wheat only in April. A blue card holder from Puttalighar area said he had been procuring wheat flour at Rs 20 per kg from the open market to meet his family needs, which stretched his kitchen budget. He added that cereal and pulses were rarely given to them. Another blue card holder from the walled city said subsidised ration was a relief to poor families in the high inflationary time and he was finding it tough to cope with expenditures with his meagre income. GOOD NEWS
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Health Dept to verify certificates
Amritsar, August 23 Civil Surgeon, Dr Rajiv Bhalla, said investigations had been started to know that if any insider was involved in the issuance of fake certificates. He said it was not yet clear if these certificates were made by an outsider or some employee of the department was involved in the scam. Dr Bhalla said, “Requests for verification of certificates by the Passport Office are received on regular basis. The department writes back to the Passport Office after checking the records.” He said officials in charge for overseeing work of issuing the birth and death certificates had been instructed to verify records for each and every certificate before replying to the Passport Office. The applicants for passport are required to furnish their birth certificates at the time of filing of the application for obtaining a passport. However, the craze for getting a passport is such that the people do not think twice before submitting a fake certificate. Dr Bhalla said applicants for birth certificates should not fall prey to the claims of any agent, who assures them of getting a fake certificate, which could not be detected. The Health Department has a fool-proof system to check the authenticity of such certificates and
people might land in trouble if they tried to hoodwink the government, he added.
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1,500 participate in WWF eco-quiz
Amritsar, August 23 DAV Public School, Lawrence Road, Amritsar, emerged as the overall winner in the junior as well as middle school contests. In the junior level, the second place was won by Pathseekers School, Beas while the third place went to BCM Arya Model, Shastri Nagar, Ludhiana. In the middle school contest, the second place was won by Sri Guru Harkrishan Public School, Majitha Road Bypass, Amritsar and third position was bagged by Millennium School, Amritsar. The team from DAV School will now participate in the nationals to be held in October in Delhi. The WWQ contest is recognised as one of the biggest event in Asia. The final winners of the contest will compete at the national level for the top three positions. The winners will gets prizes, participate in a live national telecast and will also get a chance to visit Rajaji National Park. The quiz was anchored by quiz master Krishan Anand Shenoy and facilitated by environment education officer, Punjab, Puneet Watts. The programme was hosted by Millennium School. While interacting with the teams, chairperson of the WWF, Punjab, Gunbir Singh, said, “Similar to the cherished diversity of India, biodiversity of the forest ensures air for our breath, shelter to animals and organisms alike, supply of paper, food and firewood, as well as natural beauty. As our future, children must be made significantly aware of their responsibility to protect and augment this natural asset of mankind.”
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Iron trader robbed off
Rs 6 lakh
Amritsar, August 23 The police officials, including ACP Gaurav Garg rushed to the spot after the loot was reported and started investigation. The trader, VK Gupta, was to make payment in a property deal for which he had asked his son to deliver the cash at the office. The four youngsters, three of whom were wearing turbans, entered his office at 4 pm and asked for cash at gunpoint. As Gupta denied having any cash, one of the robbers went into the room behind the office and informed others. Before leaving, the robbers took away their mobile phones and cut the wire of the landline and threatened to fire if somebody dared to intervene. The incident created panic among the area residents. The rising crime incidents in the city are worrying the local residents. Two snatchings were reported in the city last day. ACP Guarav Garg said the police parties in city had been alerted. He said the robbers would be arrested soon.
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Hyderabadi fest woos foodies
Amritsar, August 23 Attracting immediate attention of city’s food lovers, food festivals have become an integral part of the culinary itinerary. The latest being Hyderabadi food festival, offered by Ritz Hotel. Bringing the authentic and famous culinary delights from the Nizam’s kitchen, the festival menu is designed by Hyderabad-based chefs, Manju Sachdeva and KL Sachdeva. The duo, which specialises in traditional Hyderabadi cuisine, have a mouthful of rich, spicy and intricately flavoured gosht and biryanis for city connoisseurs. “The menu brings Hyderabadi delicacies like potli kebab, mahi gosht and the savoured biryanis. There is also the makahne ki kheer, which is quite famous and universally liked. The menu is balanced between the vegetarian and non-vegetarian recipes, to suit all palates,” says Manju. The 69-year-old chef believes that the passion and love for food shared between Amritsar and Hyderabad, a hot bed of Deccani cuisine, is the reason they came here. “’I have heard a lot about Amritsar and its food culture and am quite impressed by the appreciation towards culinary art. The Hyderabadi food too has a tradition of being cooked itmenaan se (cooked patiently), which is the secret behind its exclusive flavours,” he said. This is another reason behind extending their festival to ten days from a three day show. Years of training by special khansamas of Nizami kitchen and a successful restaurant make the chef duo in going all out with cooking. Calling their food tantalising they feel that the two cities shared quite a lot in their food culture, Manju said, adding that “In Hyderabad there are two types of foodies, one who enjoy royal, delicate flavours and the other with street food penchant. Amritsar too has same categories, with popular street food culture and a room for some global delicate flavours as well.” The chefs will also interact with guests at the hotel during the food festival to help them understand various flavours.
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Shooting competition
Amritsar: As many as nine students of Millenium School participated in the district-level shooting competition held at Spring Dales Senior Secondary School here recently. In pistol shooting, Harnoor of Class X won a silver medal and Sukhnoor won bronze. Harnoor, Sukhnoor and Jasnoor jointly won a team gold medal. Besides, Raxshit, Amritpal and Karman also jointly won team gold medal. Millennium debate
A team of Vandana Bhatia and Yubhav Seth of Delhi Public School
(DPS) won the “Millennium challenge-2014” debate trophy. During this inter-school power point-cum-debate competition, hosted by Millennium School, two debaters of Delhi Public School, Vandana and
Yubhav, spoke on the sensitive and burning topic of ‘Euthanasia – Whose life is it Anyway’, a right to die in simple terms. Vandana also won the outstanding speaker award in the debate. Ten teams from different schools participate in the event. In the finals, the DPS team put forward its views on ‘Euthanasia’. According to the DPS team it would give immense powers to doctors and dependents of critically ill patients to take a decision on their lives. Teachers’ workshop
A one day teachers’ workshop on teaching Hindi to Class VIII students was organised by DAV Public School under the aegis of the DAV CAE Regional Training Centre (Amritsar zone). As many as 15 teachers from GND DAV Public School,
Bhikhiwind, MKD DAV Public School, Attari, DAV International School, Police DAV Public School and DAV Public School, participated in the seminar. The workshop highlighted the aim of teaching Hindi and role of teachers in achieving academic excellence. Teachers were involved in many interesting activities, which can engage students in a positive way in the class.
Sadhbhawna Diwas
The NSS unit of BBK DAV College for Women observed Sadhbhawna Diwas in commemoration with the birth anniversary of late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, said Manbir
Kaushal, Vice-Principal of the college. A paper reading contest was held in the seminar hall of the college. Programme officer Jaspreet Bedi spoke on the theme of “Sadbhavana
Diwas”. She said the theme of the day was to promote national integration and communal harmony among the people of all religions and languages.
— TNS
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‘Qayeda’ staged at Punjab Natshala
Amritsar, August 23 A satire based on German playwright, Bertolt Brecht’s, “The Exception and The Rule”, the play is a story of class differences, where the poor always loose out. The play will be staged again on Sunday evening. Rajindra Singh, who is known for his play “Gubbare” amongst others, has adapted the short play into the Indian context. “The theme of the play is relevant with the class politics and social exploitation of the poor in our country. The rich can commit any crime and get away with it, while the poor have to suffer the consequences,” he said. “Brecht wrote it as a learning play, to educate the masses about the socialist politics,” he added. Rajindra has earned a reputation of bringing contemporary techniques and style of a narrative in theatre in the region. For him, theatre has become more of a mission than work. He has been working through his theatre group, Dastak, to hone the talent in the region by teaching mono acts, mimes, street plays and many other forms of theatre. Dastak, which aims at promoting theatre arts through committed activities, also finds a patron in Punjab Natshala’s Jatinder
Brar.
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Indian killed in US robbery bid cremated
Amritsar, August 23 The wife of the deceased, Rajni Sharma, said their children were still studying and the government should help them in completing their education. Rajni said her husband had gone to the USA with a dream of a better future for their family. She said her husband went to the USA three years ago. Rajinder was killed when he confronted an armed robber at the gas station, where he was working. His body was found by a customer at the station. The family said the Indian Consulate in the USA and a Sikh gurdwara in Washington helped them in bringing back the victim’s body to the city.
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Post offices sans money transfer facility
Post office savings bank account holders in the city cannot transfer redemption amounts of the post office saving schemes to their accounts in other banks. They are given a State Bank of India cheque, which has to be deposited in one’s own bank account. This involves a lot of efforts and loss of interest on the savings for a few days. The cheques issued by post office are not cleared because the Amritsar Post Office is not a member of the clearing house. This matter was brought to the notice of the postal authority some time ago by the TNS on a request by a writer. Then the post master, Amritsar, had promised to look into the matter, but nothing has come out from the assurance. Lakhs of post office savings bank account holders are suffering due to the lethargy of the postal authorities. When other district post offices can become members of respective clearing houses, then why is the post office in Amritsar is being deprived of this facility. The holy city has always been ignored in one way or the other, even by the state government, because it is not in Malwa, the favourite region of our political masters. If the facility of transferring amounts from post office accounts to commercial bank accounts is activated, post office officials will not have to write any cheque for disbursal. Due amount can be credited to the account holder’s account within a few minutes. This will be in the larger interest of the postal employees as well as the account holders. LJ Singh, Chief Engineer (retd), Amritsar Unauthorised parking leading to traffic chaos
Taxies from the Gol Bagh taxi stand are often parked at the doorstep of the nearby roadside hotels in anticipation of picking up more and more tourists. It keeps the road blocked leading to jams and also slow movement of the traffic at the busy road outside the railway station, Gol Bagh. When the taxi stand itself is very close to the railway station, then commuters can easily hire taxis from the stand itself. Parking taxis outside hotels, where three-wheelers also join the bandwagon, leads to unauthorised roadside parking and traffic chaos. At times, the entrance to houses of the residents is also blocked by unauthorised parked vehicles. Only the traffic police can help ease the situation by removing unauthorised encroachments on the road outside Gol Bagh side of the railway station. Kamal Soni,
Amritsar
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Amritsar: As many as nine students of Millenium School participated in the district-level shooting competition held at Spring Dales Senior Secondary School here recently. In pistol shooting, Harnoor of Class X won a silver medal and Sukhnoor won bronze.
Rajinder Kumar Sharma, who was killed by an African-American man in Washington (USA) in a robbery bid on the intervening night of August 7-8 was cremated here today.
Rajinder’s body had arrived in the city today. Apart from family members, Congress MLA and vice- chairman, National SC Commission, Raj Kumar Verka, were also present at the cremation.
