CHANDIGARH – The Punjab Cabinetdecided to include Jats in the BackwardClasses category Wednesday night. Withthis, Jats will be the 69th community tobe included in the category.Former Punjab Chief Minister CaptAmarinder Singh had attacked the Badalgovernment for not taking up the Jatquota issue with the Centre.Consequently, Jats from Punjab werenot included in the recently declaredCentral OBC [...]

CHANDIGARH – Punjab chief ministerParkash Singh Badal and his son anddeputy, Sukhbir Singh Badal, have spentRs 14 crore from the state government’scoffers since their Akali Dal governmentcame to power in March 2012. Roparbasedadvocate Dinesh Chadha’s RTIquery has revealed this.The total fuel bill of all ministers in theAkali Dal-BJP combine and chief parliamentarysecretaries is Rs 30 [...]

There are 13 pairs of twins at Sri Guru Harkrishan Public School inKapurthala. The school has a strength of 1,000 pupils. To avoid confusion,schoolteachers have tried out various ways to distinguish the twins by puttingthem in different sections or asking the parents to ensure they sport differenthairstyles. A group of twins with principal Jasbir Wadhwa [...]

ABOHAR – The police today arrested aman on the charge of killing his daughterwho reportedly had an affair with a driver.The accused, Yaad Ram, of Ghallu villagein Fazilka district, axed his 15-yearolddaughter when she was asleep in theirhut yesterday (Monday).He dumped the body in a field. A farmerspotted the body in the evening andinformed the [...]

CHANDIGARH – With the ElectionCommission (EC) sounding its poll bugle, modelcode of conduct comes into effect immediately.While voting will be held in Punjab on April 30,the people of Chandigarh, Haryana and Delhi willgo to polls earlier on April 10.Voting in Jammu and Kashmir will be in fivephases (April 10, 17, 24, 30 and May 7) [...]

CHANDIGARH – Bhagwant Mann formally joined the Aam Aadmi Party. He metsenior AAP leaders, including Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Yogender Yadav,in Delhi.Talking to The Tribune over the phone, Mann said on his return to Punjabtomorrow, he would start working as an AAP activist. He said the AAP leadershiphad told him that it was considering [...]

VK Singh Calls The Visit No BigDeal While Congress Outraged
CHANDIGARH – Punjab ChiefElectoral Officer VK Singh virtually admitted that he visitedPunjab Director General of Police (DGP) Sumedh Singh Saini atthe latter’s residence. He, however, tried to play down the incident,saying it was not as big an issue as it was made out by theOpposition and [...]

OPAR – The district court awardedlife sentence to five members of afamily for the murder of a woman andher daughter.The convicts are Lalit, the husband ofdeceased Manisha, his brother Vikas,their parents Bimal Kumar and BrijBala and Vikas’s wife Kavita.Manisha and her one-year-old daughterDivanshi were found dead on June5, 2009 at their house in Ropar.

CHANDIGARH – Senior Akali leaderSukhdev Singh Dhindsa is among theShiromani Akali Dal’s six candidatesannounced this week for the forthcomingLok Sabha elections.Sitting MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal hasbeen re-nominated from Bathinda, whileDhindsa has been fielded from Sangruragain. Prem Singh Chandumajra, who wasfielded from Patiala last time, has beenshifted to Anandpur Sahib this time.Pawan Kumar Tinoo has been [...]

Joginder Kaur(60), who haslost her husbandand younger sonto pesticidesused in thefields, praysevery day thather only survivingson does notdie before her.With no land oftheir own, sheand her son workas farm handsand spray pesticidesto makeboth ends meet. Her husband and younger son also had the same job:spraying pesticides for years. Women display pictures of their deceasedfamily members [...]