IT Chandigarh

CHANDIGARH: There was a buzz in chamber number 122 at district courts here on Thursday. AS Chahal’s room was packed with defence counsels who have fought for convicts in the assassination case of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh. With heaps of court files placed on table, the lawyers were busy preparing an appeal of Jagtar Singh Hawara’s capital sentence. Pronouncing death sentence on July 31, the court of additional district and sessions judge Ravi Kumar Sondhi had stated that appeal had to be filed in the high court within seven days of his order.

Planning to file an application for correction of court’s order in regard to the time limit during which the appeal against Hawara’s death sentence has to be moved, defence counsels are finding it hard to prepare the appeal in seven days. Reason: They have to go through 1,022 pages of judgment and approximately 4,000 pages of evidence, including pleas given by prosecution and defence, before preparing the final draft of the appeal.

Chahal, Hawara’s counsel, said, “It is a cumbersome process to prepare Hawara’s appeal as we have to go through the judgment running into more than thousand pages and approximately 4,000 pages of evidence. According to the court, the appeal had to be filed within seven days. Preparing this appeal requires a lot of time.”
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CHANDIGARH: MLAs, especially the younger lot who have been loyal to former chief minister Amarinder Singh, are getting jittery over their association with him.

According to many of them, Amarinder must sort out his differences with the Congress high command at the earliest. Otherwise they could all be victimised within the party fold in the coming days. The MLAs also feared that political vendetta could be unleashed on them because of their proximity to the former chief minister. Congress sources told TOI at the moment Amarinder enjoys support of over 25 MLAs.

Some Congress MLAs, requesting anonymity, told TOI Amarinder who once enjoyed close proximity to the top Congress leadership did not enjoy the same equation anymore. According to them, AICC top leadership was particularly not pleased with Amarinder after he failed to balance his party commitments and his relationship with former external affairs minister Natwar Singh. Senior Congress leaders had exploited this to Amarinder’s disadvantage, said one MLA.
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Mohali: The Safai Mazdoor Union of the local municipal council has asked the authorities concerned to call back all those safai sewaks who are allegedly working unauthorisedly in the offices and houses of various government officials.

The union leaders pointed out that the work of the council was being adversely affected because of shortage of staff. The civic body was taking care of sanitation work in a part of the industrial area, while in the rest of the town sanitation, work has been given on contract.

Jagbir Singh, president of the union, said there were a total of 140 safai sewaks on the rolls of the civic body out of which, 60 were allegedly working at the offices and residences of senior government officials and even at the residences of council officials.

He demanded that if it was not possible to call back all such safai sewaks, more employees should be recruited to fill the gap.

The union leaders have given a list of the safai sewaks working unauthorisedly at other places to executive officer of the council J.S. Thind. Giving details, they said five persons were working at the office of the deputy commissioner and two at his residence.
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Girl’s ‘kidnappers’ turn out to be friends

Chandigarh, August 2
In a dramatic turn of events, the Chandigarh Police traced a girl, along with her alleged kidnappers, within 30 minutes after it was informed about the incident today.

The complainant, Dinesh Kumar of Sector 22, a friend of the girl, however, later told the police that he misunderstood the incident as kidnapping and does not want to pursue the matter any more.

The police said it all started when it received a call at 10:50 am that a girl was kidnapped from Sector 36 garden by two Maruti Alto car-borne youths. The police sprang into action, and teams were rushed in various parts of the city to trace the car. After about 30 minutes, the police tracked the car near the Civil Secretariat and brought the girl along with her “kidnappers” to the Sector 36 police station.

The girl has been identified as Lavina of Ambala, who works in a company in Sector 35, where Dinesh also works. Her alleged kidnappers have been identified as Kamalpreet Singh of Ram Nagar, Ambala, and Parveen Kumar.
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Panchkula: The enforcement wing of the Estate Office, Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), today gave the shopkeepers of the Sector 7 market one more day to remove encroachments.

The grace period was given after a delegation of the market association, at a meeting with estate officer S.P. Arora, sought time to convince the shopkeepers to clear encroachments in the marketplace. Sources said they assured the EO that they would cooperate with the enforcement staff and allow the removal of items of those shopkeepers who did not pay heed to their appeal.

Yesterday, the enforcement staff had to return empty-handed in an anti-encroachment drive in the Sector 7 market. Though the staff had issued a warning to the shopkeepers to remove all their items from the corridors, the shopkeepers joined hands to prevent the staff from taking away fridges and racks of chips stacked in the corridors.

The shopkeepers had alleged that the staff was taking away items in corridors without issuing proper receipts for the same.

After yesterday’s attempt to remove encroachments failed, it was finally resolved that a second round of talks would be held between the estate officer and the association to work out a way.

Source: TNS

Chandigarh: The Army has ordered disciplinary proceedings against a Major from the Military Intelligence (MI), who was reportedly caught in the company of two Ethiopian girls at his New Delhi residence.

Sources in Army Headquarters reveal that charges against him include contacting the Ethiopian girls without due authority and taking them to his official residence, possessing arms and ammunition without a licence and without authority and several weapons and conducting an anti-narcotics operation without authority and without co-opting civil police.

The summary of evidence (SOE), a precursor to a possible trial by the general court martial, is in the process of being recorded at the Rajputana Rifles Regimental Centre in Delhi. The final decision to convene a trial will depend on the review of the SOE

A court of inquiry presided by Col Inderjit Singh, commanding officer of an infantry battalion, had held the officer blameworthy of his acts of omission and commission, following which the Army initiated the disciplinary action.
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30 joined, more in line: Governor

Chandigarh: At least 30 companies have joined the Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park and there are scores of others waiting for their chance to get in.

This was said by Gen S.F.Rodrigues, Governor of Punjab and UT administrator, while addressing the e-Revolution 2007 conference which commenced here today.

General Rodrigues underlined the potential of 65,000 IT professional jobs with three times more opportunities of subsidiary jobs. He said the park had grown as a global project and a major attraction for MNCs as “we have always adopted a transparent approach, strictly adhering to the procedures and processes as per rule of law and laid down time limit.”

“There are vast opportunities of growth and employment in this sector and we have to upgrade the knowledge and competence of our people through the tools of IT and education for meeting the requirements”, he added.

Srinath Batni, director and group head (Worldwide Customer Delivery), Infosys Technology, said knowledge was the growth driver in today’s world and contributing immensely to the GDP of economies even without investing proportionately more into the infrastructures.
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Chandigarh: Sarat Ram, a constable with the Chandigarh traffic police, was hit by a speeding vehicle when he tried to stop it. Undaunted, Sarat Ram clung on to the wipers of the vehicle for over a kilometre.

According to an eyewitness, the incident took place at around 1 pm when the traffic constable signalled a Tata Safari (Pb-32-G-0032) coming from Sector 20 to stop as its driver was using a mobile phone. The vehicle also had dark films on the windows. Instead of stopping the vehicle, he speeded it up.

The constable came in front of the vehicle in order to stop it, but he was hit by the vehicle. The constable landed on the bonnet and caught hold of the wipers. The driver did not stop even then, instead he began to drive in a zigzag manner to make him loosen his hold.

The driver even managed to negotiate a busy roundabout on Madhya Marg with the cop still on the bonnet. When the vehicle reached Khalsa College, Sector 26, it rammed into a stationary vehicle. It was then that the constable fell off the vehicle and the driver sped away.
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SOPU, PUSU activists clash; 3 injured

Chandigarh: With more than a month to go for the student council elections, Panjab University witnessed pre-election fervour and fury with activists of SOPU and PUSU clashing at the Students’ Centre today.

What started out as a heated exchange of words between student activists from both unions, soon developed into fisticuffs and abuses. The fight resulted in a PUSU activist, Tejpal Cheema, getting seriously injured and being rushed to the General Hospital, Sector 16.

SOPU activists also brought in two students, Nitin Rathee and Ankush, who had allegedly been injured by PUSU activists in a scuffle.

Allegations and counter-allegations are being filed by both unions with each blaming the other for starting the fight.

What made matters worse was that the police refused to intervene in the matter. Eyewitnesses say when the PCR vehicle stationed there was approached for help, the police personnel refused. They said they were not there to get into these fights.
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Panchkula: MANAV Mangal School emerged undisputed beating all other schools of Panchkula at District Women Festival organised by the District Sports and Youth Welfare Department, Panchkula. The competition was held at Manav Mangal School, Sector 11, Panchkula.

Manav Mangal, Bhavan Vidyalaya, CL DAV, Govt. Middle School Sec 4, Govt. High School Sec 19 participated in the Championship. Competition was held in different categories like floor exercises, vaulting table and balancing beam. Manav Mangal captured first position by scoring 75.20 points, while Bhavan Vidyalaya and CL DAV School stood second and third by getting 45.20 and 15.70 points respectively. Diksha of Manav mangal was declared best gymnast. She scored a total of 17.70 points. The second and third positions were bagged by Celeste of BV (14.70 points) and Megha of MMS (14.60 points). Earlier, four gymnasts from Manav Mangal School were selected for the Haryna Sports Women Festival. The team comprises Diksha of MMS, Celeste of BV, Megha of MMS, Jaspreet of BV, Manisha of MMS, Madhuri of MMS, and Jagriti of BV.
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