Pall of gloom descends on village of jawan killed in avalanche
BATALA: A pall of gloom descended on Fatehgarh Churian as the news of death of constable, Maninder Singh,28, of Punjab Regiment reached here late on Tuesday evening. Maninder Singh was among the four soldiers after an avalanche hit army positions in Siachen Glacier on Monday.
Gurvinder Singh, brother of deceased army jawan, said that his brother was recruited in Punjab Regiment around 12 years back and was deputed at Siachen Glacier from the past four months. On Tuesday evening, Gurvinder got a call from army headquarters that Maninder was hit by avalanche while escorting an ill Dogra regiment to the base camp.
The deceased is survived by his wife Akawinder Kaur and five-year-old son Ekamjot Singh. His body will be brought to his village from the Rajasansi airport on Wednesday afternoon. Another soldier from Punjab, sepoy Veerpal Singh was also killed.
LUDHIANA: After remaining on the lower side for a few days, the farm fire incidents have again started picking up pace across the state. As many as 1,289 stubble residue burning cases were reported from different parts of the state on Tuesday, taking the total fire incidents this paddy season to 50,967.
As many as 521 incidents to stubble burning were reported on November 18 and the number was 352 on Monday, only 25 on Sunday. On November 15, as many as 91 stubble burning incidents were reported.
On Monday, the state government announced re-verification of 29,343 small and marginal farmers who were compensated for not burning crop residue.
Farmers owning 5 acres or less are to be paid a compensation of Rs 2,500 per acre for not burning paddy residue. The government had disbursed over ₹19 crore among the farmers and the decision was taken after irregularities were detected.
Hindustan Times reported on Monday that the web-portal meant for paying compensation was hacked at two locations in Punjab. Last week, 1,985 entries from Nathu Majra village in Sangrur were found to be fake, when the village sarpanch clarified that there are not as many accounts of the farmers. Also, some dubious entries were found