COURTESY HT JAN 10

PGI doctors turn poets to spread the word on Covid safety norms

Instructions need not be boring. Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, is promoting Covid-19 appropriate behaviour through, hold your breath, shayari, poetry and songs. Faculty members, resident doctors, students and staff of the institute have been asked to participate in this competition being held to promote the Centre’s Jan Andolan (mass drive) through the department of community medicine and school of public health. The theme of the competition is to increase awareness about wearing masks, maintaining physical distance and handwashing. The entries can be sent online up to January 18.

Congress councillors rake up farmers’ protest, BJP hits back

Having boycotted the election of the Chandigarh senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor, Congress held a press conference and criticised BJP councillors for not standing up in the House as a mark of respect to farmers who died during the ongoing agitation on the Delhi-Haryana border. The lone Akali councillor, Hardeep Singh, who boycotted the mayoral election in support of the farmers’ protest against the BJP-led Centre, asked all councillors to stand up for the farmers. Of the 19 BJP councillors present, only one stood up. “This is disrespect to the farmers. This exposes the BJP’s anti-farmer mentality,” a Congress leader said. When asked to comment on this, a BJP councillor said, “Congress should have walked out of the House before the election if it was so keen on taking a stand on the farmers’ protest. They hoped for cross-voting so that their mayoral candidate could win. But after he lost, they started making such baseless comments.”

Exotic veggies get desi makeover

Move over curry patta (leaf), here comes salad patta. Exotic vegetables such as lettuce are sold as salad patta by Chandigarh’s roadside vegetable vendors. So if you hear them asking you to buy the salad patta don’t mistake it for a new vegetable variety. All they’re offering is lettuce that cannot only be consumed as salad but also in soups and making wraps.

Sector 16, where only VIPs have the right of way

Residents living in and around Sector 16, Chandigarh, are facing a different kind of traffic problem. They allege that cars parked outside government houses in the sector besides Shanti Kunj and Rose Garden lead to traffic congestion, especially in the morning. Mahinder Grover, a resident of Sector 23 who uses the road daily, says, “The who’s who of the city stay here, including top police and administration officials. In the morning, their security personnel put up barricades around the houses, causing traffic jams. The common man trying to reach office is at their mercy.” Residents say police should be posted here in the morning and wrongly parked vehicles should be towed away. Now that’s a tall order, indeed.

Panjab University misses its date with calendar for 2021

Ten days into the New Year and Panjab University is yet to come out with its calendar for 2021. After low-key celebrations to usher in the New Year amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the university authorities seem to have overlooked printing the calendar. Teachers and non-teaching staff are surprised by the delay with some claiming that it could be an austerity measure.

Inputs by Munieshwer A Sagar, Shailee Dogra, Rajanbir Singh, Amanjeet Singh and Dar Ovais