Trekking Himalayas, Climbing Himalayas, Traveling In Himalayas: News and politics

7 cops suspended for taking liquor on duty

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 02:05:11 GMT

Seven police personnel, including an ASI and three havildars, were suspended today on a charge of consuming liquor while on duty at a function held on Sunday.

The personnel against whom action was taken had allegedly taken liquor while on duty at Dara Studio in Phase VI where Punjab minister Manpreet Singh Badal had come for the function.

The policemen suspended were ASI Amarjit Singh, havildar Jaspal Singh, havildar Karamjit Singh, havildar Matu Ram, Surmukh Singh, constable Som Nath and constable Bahadur Singh.

SOURCE

Four Climbers of Indian Army Missing on Mountains

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 17:18:40 GMT

Four mountaineers of Indian army on a expedition to Mt. Nanda Devi are reported missing. Rescue had been stopped due to bad weather. Uttarakhand is going through weather disturbance which caused heavy rains in this region since a week.

SOURCE: http://www.himadventures.net/outdoor_forums/index.php/topic,26.msg496/topicseen.html#msg496

Registration of pilgrims

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 01:53:01 GMT

Registration of pilgrims for the forthcoming Amarnath pilgrimage in South Kashmir started here today under heavy security cover.

Jammu and Kashmir Bank has opened a special counter in the exhibition ground for this purpose. Its branches, throughout the country, have been assigned the task of registering pilgrims.

A large number of devotees queued up outside the bank’s counter for obtaining the registration slips. Chief executive officer of the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board and secretary to the Governor, Arun Kumar, said the bank had been asked to register 3 lakh pilgrims.

The board would start doing on-the-spot registration in case the weather permits. He said the two-month long pilgrimage would begin on June 30 and culminate on August 28.

Forest Under Threat In Kashmir-This time from uniform

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 01:49:11 GMT

Another police official was today arrested while attempting to smuggle green timber from Panzalla area of Handwara in North Kashmir. This is the third instance in less than two months when a Police official was caught while smuggling green timber in Kashmir region.

Recently a Senior Police officer was suspended by state government for using official truck to smuggle timber from Srinagar to Jammu. While in another case a police gypsy loaded with illicit timber was seized and its driver was arrested by forest protection force from Kangan area of Ganderbal district.

Sources told News Agency of Kashmir that an Assistant Sub-Inspector in Jammu and Kashmir police Sharief-ud-Din was caught red handed when he was transporting smuggled timber in a tractor at Panzalla.

The accused officer was on leave when he was arrested, a police spokesman said. A case under Forest Act has been registered against him and the smuggled timber has been seized, he added.

The green cover of Jammu and Kashmir has suffered huge damages in absence of proper check during the last seventeen years of turmoil. Cutting of green trees has been banned by an order of Supreme Court in the state or else where in the country.

However, smuggling of green timber is rampant in entire state causing huge damage to the forests in the entire state every year. The past experience has reflected that most of the smuggling and green timber is being done either in nexus with government official or by security forces.

While green coniferous forests stretches in the Valley and upper reaches of Jammu division are considered to be main tourists attraction, government has so far desperately failed to contain felling of green trees and there smuggling.

Experts attribute the fast degrading of forest cover to poor forest policy and absence of an effective surveillance. Despite of having a full-fledged forest protection force, as per an estimate, about 1 Km forest area is being damaged every year. If the trend continues state would lose all its forest cover in the next fifty years, the experts apprehend.

The State government has claimed to have taken up the fresh demarcation of forest land to save the remaining forest cover and aforestation of degraded forest land. However, so far much progress has not been made in this direction.

Recently timber worth one crore was found missing from the forest Division of Shopian district of south Kashmir. Government has ordered an enquiry into the matter.