Aamir Khan exhorts District Sangrur's village to shunt out liquor vend

Sangrur (Punjab) - It was a Taare Zameen Par moment for Changal, a village five kilometres from Sangrur city. One of the 50-odd villages which had shot to fame following their panchayat’s resolution to close down liquor vend as part of their fight against growing menace of alcoholism, on Friday got a thumbs up from Bollywood star Aamir Khan, whose crew came down to hold a special video conferencing of the actor with the villagers.

It was in 2009 that Changal decided to say no to liquor during the panchayat elections. In October last year, the crew of Aamir Khan Productions had come down to the villages of Sangrur to shoot a documentary on their fight against alcoholism. Today, the village had a date with the star himself. Village sarpanch Paramjit Singh says he told Aamir that women had assured him their votes during the panchayat elections after he promised to rid the village of the liquor vend.

“On becoming a sarpanch, our panchayat passed a resolution to shut it down. The resolution was forwarded to the department of excise, which was forced to shunt it out in 2009. Again last year, we passed the same resolution and there has been no liquor vend in the village for two years now,” he says.

Alcoholism is one of the many reasons for rising cases of debt in Sangrur villages, which also shares the dubious distinction of being the farmer suicide belt of the state, says NGO, People for Transparency.

“We have been working in Sangrur since 2007. We helped panchayats understand that their decision was binding on the government. Initially, just four villages did so. In two years, the number has gone up to over 50 in Sangrur district alone and over 70 in Punjab,” says Kamal Anand of the NGO.

He points out how government excise policy is the biggest encouragement to rising problem of alcoholism. “The excise quota fixed by the department for this year is 30 crore bottles. Assuming that only those above the age of 18 who are eligible to vote also have a right to drink, the per capita allocation is two bottles a month going by the voter count of 1.7 crore for Punjab. This is both absurd and dangerous,” Anand says.

The fight of the panchayats was as much against the resistance of tipplers as it was with the government as each village vend fetches the excise department revenue between Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1.5 core. “No wonder the department had turned down the requests of many panchayats arbitrarily. It took us a fight through courts and right to information (RTI) Act to get the government to accept the verdict of the panchayats,” he adds.

And poll slogans of political parties are no more what Changal is now talking about. It is now just the slogan given by the star, Punjabio jagte raho.

Shimla DC summons principal on turban row

A missionary school, St Edwards School, has been caught in a religious row for allegedly banning Sikh students from wearing turban during school hours.
Parents of a Class XII student, Gurleen Singh, complained to the district administration that their son was not allowed to wear turban within the school premises. Instead, the school authorities asked him to put on a patka- a small headgear. The alleged incident as per the family occurred on March 2.
Deputy Commissioner Shimla, Onkar Singh, has summoned the school principal, John Bosco, and members of Gurdwara Singh Sabha (GSS) on Saturday to sort out the issue. Besides, Singh said necessary action would be taken against any one found guilty for hurting religious sentiments of a particular community.
Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal also condemned the alleged order and said no one was allowed to hurt the religious sentiments of any particular community.
He said that district administration will look into the matter. The school’s move led the parents of the Sikh students of the school to approach the district administration demanding action against school authorities.
The student’s father, Jaspal Singh, said, “My son came home crying and told us he was not allowed to wear a turban in the school.”
However, Bosco, denied the charges. He claimed that he never ordered a ban but just asked the boy to wear patka instead of turban like other Sikh school boys were doing.
“Sikh students in the school wear patka and not turban, so the boy in question was asked why he was doing so. There is no blanket ban on turban,” Bosco said.
On the first day of session the boy was asked about the turban but the matter ended on March 5. His parents came to the school on same day and the boy was later allowed to wear whatever he wished as per the religion, he said.
The principal’s clarification had, however, failed to satisfy the people of the community. The GSS of Shimla is now up in arms over the alleged ban order on turban.
The Sabha had requested Deputy Commissioner to take suitable action against the principal. Members even threatened to launch protest if such a draconian order was not “revoked.”
GSS chief Jaswinder Singh said Sikh community would not tolerate such an order by any school. It hurts the sentiments of Sikhs and would not be tolerated at any cost, he said.

Garhwal varsity declares examination dates

HNB Garhwal Central University has declared the date of bachelor degree annual examination, but is yet to announce the results of the last year's bachelor degree exams in which around 3200 students of DAV (PG) College had appeared.
Meanwhile, College students’ union leader Anshul Chawla said that the union has decided to protest against the University if results are not declared soon.
While talking to The Pioneer, the Garhwal Central University officials said that the annual examination for bachelor degree in all its colleges and affiliated colleges will begin from May 2 and will continue till June 27, 2012.
The examination for Bachelor of Science (B Sc) and Bachelor of Arts (BA) will start from May 2, whereas students of B Com will appear in their first paper on May 22. Around 1.82 lakh bachelor degree students will appear for their annual examination at 110 different examination centres of the University.
Meanwhile, Chawla said that students’ union leaders had recently met the University Vice Chancellor Prof SK Singh who had assured the leaders that the results of 3200 students who had appeared in their bachelor degree examination last year will be declared before the start of the annual examination.
Chawla alleged that the University is playing with the future of these students by not declaring their annual exam results. He said that the union will intensify its agitation against the University VC if the pending results are not declared by the University soon.

Uttarakhand Lokayukta law on hold

Dehradun - The Uttarakhand Lokayukta Bill, which had earned the tag of a 'perfect law' from Team Anna, has been put on hold by the new chief minister of the hill state. The bill was passed by the outgoing BJP government last year, making Uttarakhand the first state to have a Lokayukta law with the lower judiciary within its ambit.
Anna Hazare and his team had maintained that the proposed law in Uttarakhand was exactly identical to the Jan Lokpal Bill drafted by them.

However, Congress chief minister Vijay Bahuguna, a former judge himself, who succeeded BJP's BC Khanduri, told TOI that he has put the law on hold. Bahuguna wants to amend the law and remove the lower judiciary from its purview. He now says that the state would prefer to wait till the Centre passes the Lokayukta law. He was in the city to attend a seminar organized by Central India group of institutions.

"Let the Centre pass the law, then the state may go ahead with it too. This will ensure there is uniformity. At present every state has a different law, like UP has kept the chief minister out of Lokayukta. In any case, the lower judiciary cannot be under the Lokayukta, which is just a fact finding body," he said.

Taxi owner murder case solved, three arrested

The Dehradun police have arrested three persons in a taxi owner and driver killing case. The body was recovered by the police in the bushes in Purkul area along Rajpur Road on April 23.
Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police Neeru Garg said that three persons, including Kulbinder alias Shabi, Ajay and Manjeet, natives of Jalandhar, Punjab were arrested on Saturday evening at the Niranjanpur vegetable market. They had allegedly hired Sanjeev’s taxi for Mussoorie on the evening of April 22.
The SSP said that there are criminal records against these accused as they had committed several crimes in the past at various places in Punjab. The Dehradun police were in touch with the Punjab Police to get more information on the accused.
During interrogation, the accused confessed to having committed the crime and a team led by Special Operation Group (SOG) in-charge Mani Bhushan Srivastava arrested two other persons named Rahul, resident of Indira Nagar and Pankaj, resident of Patel Nagar who were trying to sell Sanjeev’s car in Muzaffarnagar. It has been revealed that Shabi, along with Pankaj and Rahul, had made a plan to steal an Innova vehicle from Sanjeev. All the five accused are allegedly responsible for killing Sanjeev and stealing his taxi. The DIG Dehradun Range Sanjay Gunjyal announced a cash award of `5,000 for the SOG team involved in tracing and arresting the criminals.
It should be noted here that Mohan Khatri, a resident of Purkul had informed the police about a body lying in the bushes on the roadside at Purkul in Rajpur Road and. After post- mortem, the body was handed over to the relatives of Sanjeev who reached Dehradun in search of Sanjeev

Three tourists booked

Mussoorie, April 29
Three drunk tourists created a ruckus on the Mussoorie-Kempty road and threatened the passing commuters by waving pistol flame lighter in the air today.
According to the police, three tourists Rahul, Vijay and Ravi, who were on their visit to Mussoorie, were creating ruckus in a drunken state near the fire station on the Mussoorie-Kempty road around noon today. The three youths also began threatening the passing residents and tourists by waving the pistol flame lighter in their possession.
One of the tourists, Ajay Rana, who thought it to be a real pistol and fearing for his life, immediately called the local police, which rushed to the spot and apprehended the culprits.
The three youths have been booked under Section 81, destroying peace of the town and have been sent for a medical analysis to hospital. Later, the police left them after a stern warning and a fine.

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