Aamir Khan exhorts Sangrur 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.

4 burnt alive, several hurt in Indo-Swift factory fire in Lalru

LALRU(SAS NAGAR) - Four people were burnt alive and several others injured in a major fire caused by a boiler blast in a chemical factory near Lalru in this subdivision of Mohali district today.

Police said the fire started in the Dashmesh Medicare factory this morning after a boiler exploded in a reacter on the first floor of the building. Several fire tenders, which were pressed into service, battled for many hours to extiguish the blaze.

The bodies of four people, who were burnt alive in the fire were taken out of the debris. The deceased were yet to be identified. Two persons were still stated to be missing from the factory premises. Several people who sustained burn injuries in the fire were taken to local civil hospital, various private hospitals in the town and Government Medical College hospital in Sector 32 in Chandigarh.

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.

New immigration policy of Canada draws flak

Chandigarh, April 29
More than one lakh Punjabis are likely to be affected by a controversial decision of the Canadian government to close the files of candidates who had applied for immigration under the federal skilled workers (FSW) category before February 28, 2008.
A protest will be launched against the move in Chandigarh on April 30.
The Conservative government in Canada has decided to create, what it terms, a fast and flexible immigration system and which will eliminate backlog in the federal economic immigration programme. The new policy aims at recruiting skilled labour that addresses the country’s immediate labour market needs.
The proposal, which was put in the Canadian budget on March 29, will be implemented soon. The government plans to refund fees and return applications of all those who applied before February 28, 2008.
The Conservative government feels that it should not be bogged down with the backlog created by the erstwhile Labour government. The move will affect three lakh people worldwide, most of whom are Indian and Chinese. Thousands of Punjabis have been waiting for immigration for the past eight years and will now stand no chance of immigration under the new format, which will fast-track immigration of 29 categories of skilled workers.
Advocate Rakesh Garg, who is also an applicant for permanent immigration and heads the Pre-2008 Canadian Back-loggers Association, said candidates from across the state would hold a rally in Chandigarh on April 30.
Garg said the association would also take up the matter with Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and urge him to seek Prime Minister’s intervention in the matter as more than one lakh Punjabis would be affected by the move. Other aggrieved applicants, including Lajwant Bains and Jagminder Singh, claimed the decision was a repetition of the Komagata Maru incident and against the Continuous Journey Act, 2008, as it “goes against the first come, first serve principle. They said family reunification cases would also be delayed under the new policy.
The immigration hopefuls have established a prospective Canadian immigrations Facebook page. Garg said he was also in coordination with prospective immigrants from China, Pakistan and Sri Lanka to launch a worldwide protest against the move.

Mr. B.S.Ghuman, President of the NRI Association of Canada and NRI Law Group, a Canada based law group, assured them of the full support, of any kind, to fight for their cause and press the Canadian government to give a second thought to it's decision.

Facebook protest against Canada visa backlog policy

A proposed policy to reduce the Canada visa backlog by returning all applications made before 2008 has sparked outrage among some applicants who have taken to Facebook to make their protest known.

Canadian visa applicants who have had their applications returned have taken to Facebook to promote their cause.

As part of its Budget last month, the Canadian government announced that it would be returning all Canada visa applications to the Federal Skilled Workers (FSW) programme made before 2008 in an effort to streamline the application system and cut the backlog of applications down to a manageable amount.
The announcement was part of the Canadian immigration reform promised by the immigration minister, Jason Kenney, whose many promises and statements regarding the issue have frequently proved controversial.
However, it would seem as Mr Kenney may have gone even further this time as unhappy applicants who have seen their applications sit in a bureaucratic limbo for the past four or five years only to have them cancelled have taken to the Internet to protest the cause.
The page, 'Prospective Canadian Immigrants', has over 250 members and hopes to bring together affected applicants in order to raise awareness of the situation and bring the issue to Mr Kenney's attention.
Many of the page's members are from Ludhiana in the Indian state of Punjab which has a long history of citizens moving to Canada.
"We are well aware of the reach of the Internet and also that it has the ability to reach the deaf ears of the Canadian government. This is the reason a page has been created on Facebook and a large number of people are joining us every day, not only from Punjab but from almost all Asian countries," said Rakesh Kumar Garg, one of the page's members.
The reform of the Canadian immigration system has focussed on prioritising those applicants who have valuable skills needed in the Canadian labour market and has frequently used slogans promoting the need for young, skilled migrants; a point the Facebook page is using to promote their cause.
"It seems as we are being punished for trusting Canada blindly," wrote Ranbir Batish, one of the page's members. "Since we planned to settle in Canada our lives have come to a standstill today."
"The honourable minister wants the youth to come, but he forgot that we were also young when we had applied and if our cases are delayed it is not our fault."

City slips to third position in per capita income in country

Chandigarh, April 29
Chandigarh has lost the distinction of being the city with the highest per capita income in the country. In the national ranking, the city has ranked third. The top position has been grabbed by Goa and the national capital has been ranked second.
In the latest data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, it has been pointed out that the per capita income of the city stands at Rs 1,28,634 compared to Rs 1,28,743 in 2009-2010. On the other hand, the per capita income of Goa and Chandigarh stand at Rs 1,92,652 and Rs 1,75,812, respectively. The city was, however, far above the national average figure of Rs 60, 972.
Though no official reason has been attributed to the fall in the per capita income, delay in implementation of a number of crucial projects, resulting in poor generation of job opportunities, was said to be one of the reasons. In proportion to the increase in the city population, job opportunities had not increased. Against the projected generation of 40,000 jobs with the setting up of the IT park, only 18,000 jobs could be created there.
Quoting statistics, officials said till 2008, the city ranked high in the national ranking.
In 2008, Chandigarh had once again bagged the top position in the country, while Goa had clinched the second position. The constantly increasing per capita income of Chandigarh had multiplied about 2.5 times between 2000 and 2008.
While the average per capita income of Chandigarh was Rs 44,502 in 2000, it had increased to Rs 1,10,676 in 2008. Comparatively, it had increased to Rs 1,28,634 in 2012, meaning an approximate increase of Rs 18,000 in the last four years.
The statistics corroborate the belief that though the city has firmly moved away from the primary sector in terms of occupation, the job generation has been primarily restricted to the service industry and there has not been much industrial growth. Some of the projects cleared under the conversion policy and multiplex policy have yet to see the light of the day. The contribution of the primary sector - agriculture and allied activities has been regularly decreasing since 1999-2000.