Gurugram :
After a disappointing performance in Haryana board results, the city stands proud with two national toppers in CBSE Class X examinations, the results of which were announced.

Prakhar Mittal, a student of Delhi Public School here, has topped in the country by scoring 499 marks out of 500 (99.8 per cent). He shares the top position with Rimzhim Agarwal from Bijnor (UP), Nandini Garg from Shamli (UP), and Sreelakshmi G from Cochin (Kerala).

In the differently abled category, city girl Anushka Panda from Suncity School has topped. She scored 489 marks (97.8 per cent), sharing the spot with Sanya Gandhi from Ghaziabad (UP).

Prakhar aspires to be an engineer. “The result is a surprise for me. I had expected to top the district or may be the state. But bagging the top position in the country is overwhelming. When I learnt about it, I was numb for some time. It took a lot of time for the feeling to settle in,” he said.

He was excited to be the centre of social media jokes and memes. “Topper memes and jokes are fun. I have been reading about others till now. I am eager to see what they come up with for me,” he added.

Anushka, for her part, is “super excited” to have beat the odds. She is suffering from Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), a genetic disease that robs people of physical strength by affecting the motor nerve cells in the spinal cord, affecting the ability to walk. Notwithstanding her disability, she worked hard to fulfil her dreams.

“I want to be a software engineer and I know I will become one. I am not just happy but super excited with my result. It is true joy to win when all, including a part of you, believe you can’t. It takes a spirited heart, not body, to dream and achieve. I am happy I exemplified it,” Anushka said.

Rohtak :
Residents of the town and villages in the district have been facing much inconvenience due to shortage of water. The erratic supply of electricity has intensified the problem.
While residents of several villages have been forced to use hand-pump water or even buy water from private suppliers, residents of HUDA sectors are also facing scarcity of water due to reduction in period of water supply.

While HUDA officials claim that water is being supplied for two hours, residents maintain that that the supply time has been reduced in the recent days.

Residents of Jassia village have been using hand-pump water as the storage tanks of the local waterworks have become dry, while residents of Sundana village complain that they have to buy drinking water due to the supply of contaminated water from the waterworks.
Residents of certain localities in Rohtak have also held protests against the scarcity of drinking water in their areas during the recent days.

Superintending Engineer, Public Health and Engineering, Ishwar Jain said rationing of water had to be done in view of the fact that the Rohtak area, which used to get canal water supply after every 24 days, now gets supply after 32 days.

Jain asserted that the supply of drinking water to the residential colonies in the old Rohtak town had been normalised and water tankers are being sent to the areas in which there was some hindrance in the piped water supply.

Sonepat :
Former Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala while addressing a joint meeting of the party workers of INLD and BSP from Gohana and Baroda Assembly constituencies at Gohana on Monday said, “Though I am not a forecaster, but on the basis of my political experience, I can say that the Central government can hold simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and Assembly any time between October and December this year.”
He announced that after forming an alliance with other political parties, every effort would be made to instal BSP supremo Mayawati the Prime Minister of the country.
Chiding the state BJP government, Chautala remarked that any government which had failed to provide basic amenities to its people had no right to rule. He asked the workers to make the party’s ‘Jail Bharo Andolan’ a great success.

He said that after formation of the INLD-BSP alliance government in the state, ‘Roti, Kapra, Mukan, Health and Education’ would be provided to the poor and needy. INLD’s national spokesman Dr KC Bangar, district president Padam Singh Dahiya, and other leaders of the BSP and INLD were present at the meeting.

Interestingly, on the direction of INLD supremo, the party workers and mediapersons were not allowed to take photographs of the meeting.

Kurukshetra :
Farmer unions across the country have decided to suspend supply of vegetables and milk to wholesale markets from June 1 to 10. Growers from Haryana will join the ‘Kisan Avkash’ as well.

Famers are demanding price fixation policies for agricultural and horticultural produce, loan waiver and implementation of Swaminathan Commission recommendations.
Gurnam Singh Charuni, state president of the Bhartiya Kisan Union, said farmers would sell their produce at their own counters in their respective villages or near highways.
The prices would be fixed by farmers to maintain profitability, but the direct buyer would have to pay high rates, he said.

“Farmers will boycott sale in mandis and stay away from market purchase for 10 days. We had earlier proposed suspension of farm supplies, but now decided to open sale counters for the convenience of the public,” said Charuni.

He is also a member of the executive committee of the Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh, an umbrella organisation of 172 unions across India. He said farmers would sit on dharna during the ‘Kisan Avkash’.

The mahasangh had been demanding a price fixation policy to regulate business activities of middlemen in the supply chain of agricultural products.

“Traders pay meagre amounts to farmers and the products are sold to consumers at high prices. We want the government to fix a minimum price for farm produce to avoid exploitation of farmers at the hands of traders,” said Charuni.

“There should be a transparent mechanism to regulate maximum profit margin for middlemen to ensure that the end user does not buy at a price several times the price paid to the farmer,” he said. He said a campaign had been started to seek the support of people from non-farming groups.

“The BJP governments at the Centre and in Haryana are suppressing the voice of farmers. Farmers are in a pitiable financial condition. We want a loan waiver and implementation of Swaminathan Commission recommendations to save lakhs of small and marginal families dependent on farming,” he added.

Chandigarh :
Feeling that it is not getting its due and its visibility is not up to the mark, Manohar Lal Khattar-led government has decided to go on a publicity overdrive by going beyond its party leaders and roping in officers for the purpose.

The government directed all DCs on Monday to hold monthly press conferences on a specific date to apprise the public of ongoing schemes and plans being run in their districts.

In a letter, the monitoring and coordination cell directed all Divisional Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners to give wide publicity about future initiatives and vision of the state government.

The move comes in the year preceding parliamentary and state elections and at a time when opposition parties are leaving no stone unturned to put the government on the mat.
Constantly under fire from the INLD and Congress for issues ranging from unfulfilled manifesto promises to faltering on providing good governance and better law and order, the government finds itself low on visibility in terms of its achievements.

Media adviser to Chief Minister Rajiv Jain said he had visited 17 districts within a month of assuming charge. He claimed that this publicity drive had nothing to do with the elections next year.

“DCs will hold press meets to project the vision of the government and apprise the public of systematic changes and pro-people policies. We are only reviving a tradition,” he said.
The timing had roots in the fact that the government wanted to portray itself in better light and wanted it done not through its leaders, but through neutral officers.

Sources said though ministers had been holding press conferences from time to time and inaugurating projects, this did not seem enough to state leaders.

Since ministers and MLAs invariably ended up tom-tomming various decisions, the onus to take achievements of the government to the people, give it more visibility and build up momentum had been placed on field officers.