IK Gujral, the former Prime Minister of India passed away on Friday

Govt. declares 7-day mourning on IK Gujral's death, cremation today at 3 pm

Former Prime Minister I K Gujral, who headed a rickety coalition government in the late 1990s, died on Friday after a brief illness.

Gujral, 92, breathed his last at 3.27 PM in a private hospital after a multi-organ failure. He was admitted to the hospital on November 19 with a lung infection, family sources said.
The former Prime Minister, who was ventilator support, had been unwell for sometime. He was on dialysis for over a year and suffered a serious chest infection some days ago.

He will be cremated in nearby Delhi tomorrow.

IK Gujral with Chandrashekhar and the then Delhi Chief Minister Sushma Swaraj in May 1998.

Gujral, who migrated from Pakistan after partition, rose to become the Prime Minister with a big slice of luck after he came up through the ranks - starting as Vice President in NDMC in the '50s to later become a Union Minister and then India's Ambassador to the USSR.

Gujral, an intellectual who propounded the 'Gujral Doctrine' of five principles for maintaining good neighbourly relations, left the Congress to join the Janata Dal in the late-1980s.

He became Minister of External Affairs in the V P Singh-led National Front government in 1989. As the External Affairs Minister he handled the fallout of the Kuwait crisis following Iraqi invasion that displaced thousands of Indians.

Gujral had a second stint as External Affairs Minister in the United Front government under H D Deve Gowda, whom he later replaced as Prime Minister after the Congress withdrew support in the summer of 1997.

He emerged as the consensus candidate after serious differences developed among the UF leaders including Lalu Prasad Yadav, Mulayam Singh and others as to who will become the Prime Minister.

It was another matter that his government survived only for a few months as Congress again became restive in the wake of Jain Commission report on Rajiv Gandhi's assassination.

Born on December 4, 1919 in Jhelum town now in Pakistan, Gujral belonged to a family of freedom fighters and had actively participated in the freedom struggle at a young age and was jailed in 1942 during the Quit India Movement.

Educated at DAV College, Haily College of Commerce and Forman Christian College, Lahore (now in Pakistan), Gujral took active part in student politics.

He became a member of the Rajya Sabha in April 1964 and was considered part of the 'coterie' that helped Indira Gandhi become Prime Minister in 1966.

He was the Information and Broadcasting Minister when Emergency was imposed (on June 25, 1975), which brought in arbitrary press censorship, but was soon removed.

Gujral was a Rajya Sabha Member twice between 1964 and 1976, a member of the Lok Sabha from 1989 to 1991. With Lalu Prasad's help, he became a member of Rajya Sabha in 1992 after his election from Patna Lok Sabha constituency was countermanded.

He was re-elected to Lok Sabha in 1998 from Jalandhar in Punjab as an independent with help from Akali Dal.

A controversial decision of his government was its recommendation for President's rule in Uttar Pradesh in 1997, which the then President K R Narayanan refused to sign and sent it back to the government for reconsideration.

His wife, Sheila, who died in 2011, was a poet and author and his brother Satish Gujral is a prominent painter and architect. He leaves behind two sons, one of whom Naresh Gujral is a Rajya Sabha MP and now an Akali Dal leader.

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.

Punjab to house its offices in three buildings

Chandigarh, November 4
Peeved at the lack of response from its various departments, the Punjab Government has once again written to the Finance, Principal and Administrative Secretaries to provide in detail the requirements for their respective offices.

The government will now house offices in three premises, Vikas Bhavan (developmental activities), Nirman Bhavan (construction offices) and a new mini secretariat (general administration).

A communication to the secretaries read: “There has been no satisfactory response to the earlier communication seeking details for office requirements for the next 50 years.”

The government intends to house offices concerned with developmental activities, such as rural development and panchayats, animal husbandry, fisheries, cooperation and agriculture, at Vikas Bhavan. Offices related to construction activities, including the PWD, water supply and sanitation, will find a place in Nirman Bhavan and directorates and other departments will be housed in the new mini secretariat.

The state government is looking for a central place for its offices.

A Principal Secretary said “The main office of the Education Department is located in the mini secretariat. Certain other offices are located in Sector 17 and some in Sector 34. Similarly, the police headquarters are located in Sector 9 and other offices in different parts of Sector 17.”

The government spends a tidy sum on paying rent for these offices. Certain owners, who want to raise the rent, have approached the court.

Institute to train farmers in crop management

Fatehgarh Sahib, November 4
The National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management (NIFTEM) has adopted three villages of the district to provide training in the management of various crops to farmers. These villages are Deramian Meer, Peerjain and Panjoli.

Deputy Commissioner Yashvir Mahajan said the NIFTEM had adopted these villages for four years. He said three teams of the institute had visited these villages and provided training to farmers for one week. The teams will camp in these villages for one week in October and November and two weeks in May and June.

Mahajan said the farmers should give a preference to the management of crops and the arrangement of proper storage facility after forming self-help groups. He said NIFTEM teams would conduct tests on water and soil samples in these villages to provide information about the soil fertility.

He said the institute teams would also provide training regarding grading of crops and its packaging so that the farmers could get better remuneration. The teams would also provide training to the farmers in the maintenance of village ponds and fish farming. He urged the farmers to benefit from the training programme and cooperate with these teams.

Additional Deputy Commissioner (Development) Sanjeev Kumar Garg said each team of the NIFTEM would comprise 10 members. He said Dr Koman Chauhan, Dr Neetu Taneja and Dr Bhasmati Bhattacharya would lead these teams in Deramian Meer, Peerjain and Panjoli villages, respectively.

Livestock contests in Punjab from November 16

Jalandhar, November 4
To promote dairy development, the Animal Husbandry Department will organise district-level livestock championships and milking competitions in all 22 districts of Punjab from November 16 to December 21. Animal Husbandry Minister Sarwan Singh Phillaur said out of the budget of Rs 1.98 crore sanctioned for the purpose, Rs 1.21 crore would be distributed among the winners.

The championships will be held In Jalandhar on November 19 and 20. After the culmination of these contests, the National Livestock Championship will be held at Muktsar from January 8 to 12 next year with a budget of Rs 2 crore. Phillaur said four new modern jails would come up in Amritsar, Bathinda, Muktsar and Ferozepur.

The minister said the jails would have a capacity of 3,000 inmates each and land for three projects had already been acquired.

He said to rescue Punjab from the vicious wheat-paddy cycle, the state had been assured help from the Central Government for the promotion of dairy farming, animal husbandry as well as fisheries in the state.

The issue will also be discussed during Union Agricultural Minister Sharad Pawar's upcoming meeting with senior agricultural officials at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, on November 20, he added.

Employees' body alleges misuse of funds at hospital

Sangrur, November 4

The district president of the Democratic Employees Front of Punjab, Swaranjit Singh, has accused the local Civil Hospital officials of misusing funds worth lakhs of rupees collected as user fee and test charges from patients.

Swaranjit said the matter had been brought to the notice of the Principal Secretary (Health), Government of Punjab, through a written complaint, demanding an inquiry into the matter.

In a statement issued here today, Swaranjit claimed that the hospital authorities had allegedly shown higher expenditure on furniture and stationery items as compared to the prevailing market rate. He also alleged that medicines of costly brands had been purchased from local chemists even though their generic versions were available at much cheaper rate.

The statement said that the “amount spent on construction and repair works in the hospital also seemed to be more than the actual expenses”.

Senior Medical Officer of the Civil Hospital Dr Makhan Singh, however, refuted the allegations. He claimed that no funds had been misused.

On alleged bungling in repair and construction works in the hospital, he said all such projects had been finalised after being discussed by committees formed specially for the purpose.