CN & Heard

Mohali Police can’t bell the ‘cats’

Women traffic violators are getting off scott-free in Mohali,as the Mohali Traffic Police has come up with a ‘weird’ excuse of not challaning the women violators. The reason,which the traffic cops give is that the women violators create a ruckus,whenever stopped by a male policeman; and there are no women police personnel posted in the traffic wing. “There are only 84 traffic policemen in Mohali and no women police officer is posted in the traffic wing. We don’t challan the women violators,to avoid unnecessary chaos,” said one of the traffic police officers.

‘Hazare’ excuse

The arrest of Anna Hazare brought smiles on faces of a few lawyers in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Not because they were happy with his arrest but because the Bar Association had decided to suspend all work. Suddenly showing complete support to Anna Hazare,some lawyers had a personal cause,holidays. Some of them even decided to raise the issue that work shall be suspended indefinitely till Hazare is released from Jail. Much to their regret,this ‘cause’ did not find much favour with the Bar Association.

No cyber cafe; hostellers fuming

One of the government girls colleges in the city has recently closed down its only cyber-cafe on the college campus. The decision was taken when the IT department of the college detected and subsequently informed the authorities that some of the ‘restricted’ websites were accessed from the systems in the cafe. This move by the college authorities has left the students,especially the hostel residents who are bound within the college hostel premises due to their strict outings,fuming. The students are terming the decision to be irrational and a clear manifestation of the prevalent common mindset where entirely stopping a service is preferred than using already available solutions.

Missing hosts

When officials from Union home ministry,senior police officers from Delhi,Jammu and Kashmir,Himachal Pradesh,Punjab,Haryana,Rajasthan and Uttarakhand arrived in Chandigarh to attend a workshop on Advisory on Missing Children,the hosts,Chandigarh police,was conspicuously absent. Though an invite had gone to Chandigarh police from the organisers of the event,they had flatly denied to attend the meet stating that the police officers in the city were busy with Independence Day arrangements. Strangely,it looks as if Chandigarh police was the only force in the country that was celebrating the Independence day function.

May the code continue

The officials of the Municipal Corporation seem relieved these days. With the code of conduct in place due to the SGPC elections,the visits of the councillors to the officials asking for tenders to be floated and work to be executed on priority in their wards have stopped. In the past few months,the councillors had been pressing upon the officials to complete work faster due to the forthcoming Municipal elections. With the work now coming to a halt,the queries from councillors have also subsided.

A raid That wasn’t

On Sunday evening,the rumour of a CBI raid at one of the chemists shops in a government hospital in city sent the media persons and those working in the hospital in a tizzy. Phones kept ringing to check the reality of a raid from the union leaders in the hospital to the doctors. Going by the recent incidents of chemists giving a raw deal to customers,it became all the more pertinent to find out if the raid was real. Ultimately it turned out that owing to a long weekend,a team of hospital administration had descended on the hospital premises to check if everything was under control. Nevertheless,if a hoax can bring out such seriousness,may be the hospitals in the city should seriously think about it to keep things running smoothly.

Counselling blues

After the Class XI admission counseling in city government schools completed this week,the admission committee members in UT education department spent hours counseling the parents of a number of students who could not get admission in the schools of their choice due to lesser score in Class X. The parents pleaded to the officials to enroll their wards in schools with considerably high cut-off Cumulative Grade Point Average,despite realising that the process is merit-based.

Goof-up

The Public Relation department of the Panjab University perhaps forgot to change the heading for the detailed press note recently sent on Independence Day. The press note mentioned as the cultural events marked on the ‘Republic Day’ in the University. Ideally,even if a ‘cut-and-paste’ job was done by the department,the department should have been careful enough,not to commit such a mistake in the heading.