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.

Encroachment drive: MC challans 75 violators

Chandigarh, October 19
The Municipal Corporation Chandigarh carried out an anti-encroachment drive at Sector 22 Shastri Market and its outskirt area. The MC team challaned 75 violators for encroaching upon the government land.

The drive was carried out under the supervision of Additional Commissioner, Lalit Siwach, and assisted by Superintendent Kashmir Singh and other enforcement staff of the MCC.

During the drive, all the walls and passages were cleared from the Shastri Market, Sector 22. The team also removed and seized gas cylinders, tables, chairs, readymade garments, deep refrigerators and coolers from the inner passages of the markets. In addition, rehri pheris were removed from the outskirts of Sector 22.

Former Cong minister Henry loses citizenship

 

Jalandhar, September 19
The Ministry of Home Affairs (Foreigners Division) has ceased the Indian citizenship of senior Congress leader and transporter Avtar Henry.

In a communication to Principal Secretary (Homes) DS Bains, Undersecretary, Union Government, SN Garg has said the Centre, while exercising powers under Sections 9(2) of the Citizenship Act-1955, had ceased Henry’s Indian citizenship from the date he acquired British citizenship and passport in 1969.

Henry, however, is at liberty to acquire Indian citizenship by following the procedures laid down under the law.

In the letter, Garg stated that an inquiry report forwarded by the Additional Director General of Punjab Police specified that the office of the Deputy Commissioner, Jalandhar, was not in possession of any record that could be used to ascertain whether Henry had submitted an application to acquire Indian citizenship or not. Henry had acquired an Indian passport in 1981 and subsequently in 2004. The passport can be issued only to an Indian citizen.

But the records of the Foreigners Division of the Ministry of Home Affairs confirmed that the division had not granted Indian citizenship to Avtar Henry from 1981 onwards.

The letter sent by Garg to Bains stated that the fact that he had acquired a British passport conclusively proved that he had acquired British citizenship and thereby automatically ceased to be an India citizen under Sections 9(1) of the Citizenship Act-1955 from the date of the acquisition of British citizenship.

Case history

Henry had landed in a trouble following allegations of dual citizenship levelled by his son Gurjit Singh Sanghera. The Union Home Ministry had summoned him to Delhi to clear his stand.

Henry was asked to appear before the ministry on July 10, 2012. Henry had appeared before SM Garg and recorded his statement.

In November 2009, Sanghera had accused his father of possessing two passports. In his complaint, Sanghera had alleged that Avtar Singh ‘Sanghera’ had been to England on an Indian passport, which he had procured from the passport office in Delhi by posing as Lakhbir Singh Sanghera’s son. Lakhbir Singh Sanghera is, in fact, Henry’s elder brother and his father’s name is Joginder Singh.

The complainant had further alleged that Henry had made a false averment in the British passport that his “father”, Lakhbir Singh Sanghera, had died in 1905. Lakhbir Singh had actually died in November 2006.

The complaint further read that Avtar Henry (‘son’ of Lakhbir Singh) took British citizenship on the old passport issued by the Indian Government. He later managed to get a passport from the British government and returned to India in September 1969. He yet again got a passport prepared from the Jalandhar passport officer, showing himself as the son of Joginder Singh (the real father) and born in Pakistan.

The complainant had sought charges under Sections 420, 465, 467, 468, 471 and 494 of the IPC against Henry. The Jalandhar police acted on the complaint, but the files were gathering dust at the SSP’s office.

The case was later reopened by the city police after Sanghera, through his friend Ajay Sehgal, an RTI activist, moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

The court had directed the Union Home Ministry, Punjab Chief Secretary and the DGP to complete an ongoing probe into a complaint against Henry in four months.

Son relieved

Gurjit Singh Sanghera has expressed satisfaction at the union government’s decision to cease Henry’s Indian citizenship. Talking to The Tribune, Sanghera claimed that he would move an application before the city police Commissioner seeking his arrest.

BJP veteran Bakshi Ram Arora is Amritsar Mayor

Amritsar, September 19
The BJP high command today appointed veteran leader Bakshi Ram Arora as the city Mayor, putting to rest the tussle between two factions of the local unit lobbying hard for respective candidates.
The three-time BJP councillor’s name was proposed by SAD Chief Parliamentary Secretary Inderbir Bolaria and seconded by BJP Cabinet Minister Anil Joshi during the first meeting of the fifth Amritsar Municipal Corporation House at Town Hall.
SAD councillors Avtar Singh Truckanwala and Avinash Jolly were unanimously elected Senior Deputy Mayor and Deputy Mayor, respectively. Their names were proposed by Joshi and seconded by Bolaria.

The presiding officer, Jalandhar Divisional Commissioner SR Ladhar, administered the oath to the newly elected councillors.

Chandigarh gets rid of its ‘disturbed area’ tag after 29 years

Chandigarh, September 19
Around three decades after it was labelled a “disturbed area”, Chandigarh today finally managed to shrug off the tag, with the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashing a notification to that effect.

The tag was given to Chandigarh in 1983 during the dark days of militancy in Punjab. The intention was to bestow special powers on the Administration, the police and the security forces for effectively dealing with militancy between 1981 and 1992.

Since Punjab was mostly under President’s Rule, Chandigarh was also brought under the Punjab Governor’s purview. He was, in fact, made the UT Administrator.

Punjab gave up the title in 1997. But nearly two decades after militancy was wiped out from the state, Chandigarh refused to let go the “disturbed” status. This was despite the fact that no major terror incident took place in the city after 1995.

As a petition filed in public interest on the issue came up for resumed hearing before the high court this morning, the Division Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Jasbir Singh and Justice Rakesh Kumar Jain held that Chandigarh was no longer a disturbed area, as the notification had ceased to have any relevance in present times.

The Bench minced no words in holding that the Chandigarh Administration had failed to justify the relevance of such notifications in present times, particularly when no terror incident had been reported in the city for the past many years.

The court also observed chances were that the tag was acting as a deterrent for tourists. So many of them would obviously be reluctant to visit the city after finding it labelled on the Internet as a disturbed area, the Bench added.

The development is significant also because the Chandigarh Administration had, just about two days ago, made clear its intention of not withdrawing the notification declaring Chandigarh a disturbed area.

Appearing before the high court during a hearing on the petition filed by Janata Dal (United) president Surinder Bhardwaj, the UT senior standing counsel Sanjay Kaushal had claimed that besides accommodating government functionaries of Punjab and Haryana, Chandigarh was also catering to the security needs of protected persons actively involved in the fight against terrorism.

ADMINISTRATOR STAYS

• Though the “disturbed area” tag has gone, the Punjab Governor remains the Chandigarh Administrator
• The petitioner said after the issuance of the notification, the Punjab Governor was appointed the Chandigarh Administrator. But after 1986, no such notification was issued, he argued while seeking revival of the Chief Commissioner’s post
• The high court refused to accept the plea stating the relief was not even sought in the petition