Crackdown on encroachments in Sector 17

Chandigarh, November 21
As the UT estate office has stepped up its drive against banks and other offices which have encroached upon corridors of upper floors of buildings in sector 17, the estate office has ignored similar violations by shopkeepers near the central piazza of the commercial sectors.

On Wednesday, teams of the estate office started removing the glazing in the rear balconies of the buildings housing banks.

Apart from the violation, the glazing is a major fire hazard as has been witnessed during recent incidents of fire in the buildings located in the Bank Square.

Sources said notices to around 70 violators have already been issued. The chief architect has sought to maintain the heritage status of Sector-17. The heritage status does not allow glazing in the corridors. The architect department has pointed out that the defacement of buildings was also against the heritage plan.

Most of the owners and occupants of the buildings in the sector have covered their corridors with glazing, plywood or other material to convert the open area into rooms.

The violators also included the UT Excise and Taxation Office and 30-bays building, which housed several government offices of UT.

Students from Paris on tour to study city’s architecture

 Chandigarh, November 18

Eighteen students from the Architectural School of Paris-Malaquais are in the city on a fifteen-day tour to understand how the local planners accommodated the radical vision of the original master plan of the city.

Students of Architectural School of Paris-Malaquais visit an old house in Sector 22, Chandigarh, on Sunday. Tribune photo: Pradeep Tewari

The group is surveying, photographing, sketching and describing the modern architecture of the city. The goal is to see how the modern city of Chandigarh could absorb the current and continuous growth of population.

These students belong to various countries including Spain, France, Hungary and Portugal. They are being accompanied by their teachers Thierry Mandoul and Clement Blanche.

The students will help in developing urban and architectural proposals which will integrate themes like preservation and sustainability.

This project, being done in collaboration with the Chandigarh College of Architecture, will be finalised in the summer of 2013.

37,000 sit for CTET in tricity

Chandigarh, November 18

About 37,000 students appeared for the Central Teachers Eligibility Test (CTET) held at 67 centres around the tricity.

Started by the CBSE in 2011, CTET is mandatory for any teacher who wants to join a government-aided CBSE school, and schools run by the Centre such as Kendriya Vidyalayas and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas, and those managed by the union territories.

As far as passing percentage is concerned, CTET has seen poor results so far. In the second edition, more than 92 per cent teachers failed to pass the exam, where as the maiden exam in 2011 saw more than 85 per cent teachers failing to clear the exam. More than 7 lakh candidates appeared for this year’s exam across India.

Fearing defeat, Sheila delaying DSGMC poll: Badal

Jalandhar/Chandigarh, November 18

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today hit back at his Delhi counterpart Sheila Dixit saying that she was deliberately delaying elections to the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC). Talking to newsmen at Khiala village near Jalandhar, Badal accused the Delhi Chief Minister of helping DSGMC president Paramjit Singh Sarna whose defeat in the next DSGMC poll was inevitable. He said that as it would have an impact on the Delhi Assembly elections, Sheila wanted to delay elections to the Sikh institution. In a separate statement, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) took a strong note of the remarks of the Delhi Chief Minister asking her Punjab counterpart Parkash Singh Badal to “keep off Delhi gurdwara affairs”. The SAD described her reaction as irrational and indicative of the fact that Dixit was not aware of the history of the DSGMC. The SAD said that it was strange that the Congress leader was asking the founding fathers of the DSGMC to become mute spectators to the denigration of the management committee responsible for the maintenance of historic Sikh shrines in the national capital. SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal said, “Will someone please go and tell her that Sikh affairs are very much a business of the Sikhs, and of the Sikhs alone, and that she or her government should stay away from the internal religious matters of the Sikh community. “Let her instead use her position to ensure better law and order in Delhi. By openly talking about an issue which concerns our shrines, Dixit has only confirmed Parkash Singh Badal’s observation that the Congress government in Delhi is indeed interfering in the religious affairs of the Sikhs,” he said.

Party spokesman Dr Daljit Singh Cheema reminded the Congress leader that it was in 1970 that the then SAD president Sant Fateh Singh led a ‘morcha’ in Delhi demanding a similar democratic body on the pattern of the SGPC for the management of Sikh shrines in Delhi.

“Parkash Singh Badal, all his senior colleagues and 16,000 other SAD leaders and workers went to jail in this morcha,” added Cheema.

“So the present DSGMC came into being in 1971 as a result of the sacrifices made by the Sant Fateh Singh, Parkash Singh Badal and other SAD workers,” he said.