Posts Tagged ‘Shimla’
Written by admin on 06 February 2012
Shimla, Feb 6 (IANS) The hills of Himachal Pradesh witnessed a sunny but chilly day Monday after days of widespread snow and rain.
“It was a bright, sunny day across the state with temperatures remaining below freezing point in many areas,” an official of the meteorological office here told IANS.
He said Keylong, headquarters of Lahaul and Spiti, was the coldest at a minimum temperature of minus 12.3 degrees Celsius. It saw 1 cm snow in the past 24 hours.
Kalpa in Kinnaur district, which experienced 8.9 cm of snow, saw a low of minus 6.6 degrees, while the temperature was minus 2.8 degrees in Manali and 4.1 degrees in Dharamsala. Manali experienced 8.2 mm of rain.
Shimla’s night temperature was 3.6 degrees Celsius, a rise from Sunday’s 2.1.
The Met office said Shimla, Sirmaur and Kinnaur districts are likely to witness more snow and rain till Tuesday.
Tags: Shimla
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Written by admin on 05 February 2012
Shimla, Feb 5 (IANS) The cold continued to grip the entire Himachal Pradesh Sunday with the higher reaches experiencing more snow. However, there was widespread rainfall the in low and mid hills, said an official.
The Metereological office here said the chill would extend over the weekend as snow and thundershowers would continue in the state till Feb 9.
The minimum temperature in Shimla was recorded at 2.1 degrees Celsius and Manali was at minus 0.6 degrees. Shimla’s day temperature was 12.1 degrees.
Shimla received 3 mm of rain while Manali got 30 mm of rain in the 24 hours to Sunday morning, said the Met office.
Kalpa, some 250 km from here which experienced 18.7 cm of snow, saw a minimum temperature of minus 2 degrees Celsius, while it was 4.3 degrees in Dharamsala, which had 29.2 mm of rain.
Keylong, the headquarters of Lahaul and Spiti, experienced 25 cm of snow and was the coldest in the state with a low of minus 7.4 degrees Celsius.
Tags: Shimla
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Written by admin on 05 February 2012
Shimla, Feb 5 (IANS) The hills of Himachal Pradesh have warmed up to assembly election fever. Ahead of the house’s tenure ending in December, a faction of the ruling BJP has raised its voice against the “rampant corruption” in the state and resigned from the party.
Maheshwar Singh, four-time former MP and two-time state party chief, along with former speaker of the state assembly Radha Raman Shastri and two former ministers Shyama Sharma and Mohinder Sofat last week announced their resignation from the party.
The dissidents Feb 3 announced the formation of the Himachal Lokhit Party, a new political outfit, under the leadership of Maheshwar Singh and announced that it would contest the assembly elections.
“Top political functionaries, including (Chief Minister Prem Kumar) Dhumal and his MP son Anurag Thakur, are neck-deep in corruption. They are involved in illegal property transactions and promotion of realtors. The entire state is up for sale,” Singh told IANS.
He said even the party high command has become a party to the corrupt deals of Dhumal and his cabinet colleagues, including Health Minister Rajeev Bindal.
“We have apprised the party high command, including BJP chief Nitin Gadkari, of their misdeeds a number of times in the past three months. He (Gadkari) asked for proof of the allegations. We provided him all the evidence. But he deliberately adopted delayed tactics. Finally, we have decided to say ‘jay siya Ram’ (goodbye) to the party,” Singh said, adding: “Now, we will fight it out politically during the elections.”
The rebels, on the day of the floating of the new party, said in a statement that the BJP and the Congress, the state’s two main political parties, are resorting to “political match-fixing” to rule the state in turns, leaving the people reeling under one corrupt regime after another.
“The induction of Babu Lal Kushwaha (of Uttar Pradesh) into the party indicates that the party has strayed from its ideology and principles. It has embraced corporate culture, especially since Gadkari took over the reins,” the statement said.
Reacting to the political developments, Dhumal said the decision of party leaders to form a new outfit “is unfortunate”.
“It would hurt the party. The body suffers if any of the limbs are lost,” he said.
On chances of bringing the leaders back to the party, Dhumal said: “The ball is in the court of the party high command.”
Political observers said the state government is already under fire by the opposition Congress for alleged corruption.
They said the high command should have taken cognizance when allegations were raised against Dhumal and Gadkari should have taken damage-control measures.
The rebels, who were sulking for being sidelined by the party, had signalled bickering within the party by floating the Himachal Bharashtachar Mukti Morcha (Himachal anti-corruption front) in Nov last year. But at that time, they preferred not to attack the state government and the party directly.
Even the ruling BJP’s own MP Rajan Sushant put the government in the dock by levelling allegations of corruption, especially about shady land deals.
For quite some time, Sushant was openly criticising Dhumal. He was axed from the party’s state executive body in May last year for demanding a “narco-analysis” test of Dhumal and his cabinet ministers over corruption.
Leader of Opposition Vidya Stokes told IANS: “From the first day, we have been saying the BJP government is involved in corruption. Now, its leaders are saying the same thing.”
Dhumal, who took over reins of the state for the second time Dec 30, 2007, said his government was among the few states that reacted quickly after the national outcry against corruption.
“We now have laws in place to nail corrupt officials and make them accountable through timely delivery of services to the public,” he said.
Despite allegations, a confident Dhumal said his biggest achievement over the past four years was winning the trust of the “aam aadmi” or the common man.
Tags: Himachal Pradesh, Shimla
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Written by admin on 04 February 2012
Shimla, Feb 4 (IANS) Himachal Pradesh has 7.32 percent of the total biodiversity of the country and is promoting cultivation of herbs, Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said Saturday.
“The state government is promoting herb culture in a big way so that besides using herbs in ayurvedic medicines the income of farmers could be supplemented,” Dhumal said at a regional conference of Arogya Bharti in Una town, 150 km from here.
He said the government had initiated a number of programmes to strengthen the ayurveda system of medicines. “To provide medical treatment to people at their doorstep, the state has given relaxation up to 53 years to ayurvedic doctors for recruitment.”
Himachal Pradesh is known to be a grower of herbs and a large number of people depend on the cultivation and collection of herbs for their livelihood.
The government is also promoting the plantation of indigenous species, especially medicinal plants on a large scale, to transform the hill state into a herbal zone.
In 2009, the government launched a herbal plantation campaign under which the farmers across the state were provided over one crore herbal saplings of more than 50 indigenous species like neem, banyan, jamun and peepal free of cost for plantation.
Tags: Shimla
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Written by admin on 04 February 2012
Shimla, Feb 4 (IANS) The continuing cold wave again tightened its grip over Himachal Pradesh Saturday as the state’s higher reaches had a fresh spell of snow.
The weather office here has forecast more snow till Sunday.
Shimla, which was cloudy throughout the day, recorded a minimum temperature of 4.6 degrees Celsius, a fall by 0.9 degree Celsius from Friday.
“The high hills in Lahaul and Spiti, Kinnaur, Kullu and Chamba districts have been experiencing light to moderate snowfall since Friday,” said a weather department official.
Keylong in Lahaul and Spiti district was the coldest place in the state where mercury plummetted to seven degrees Celsius below the freezing point. The town recorded three cm of snowfall.
Kalpa in Kinnaur district, which recorded 6.3 cm of snow, saw a low of minus 1.2 degrees Celsius, while it was 0.6 degree Celsius in Manali and 4.7 degrees Celsius in Dharamsala.
Tags: Shimla
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Written by admin on 04 February 2012
Shimla, Feb 4 (IANS) Himachal Pradesh Police will revert to wearing traditional khaki in place of trendy blue uniforms, an official said here Saturday.
‘The police board has unanimously decided to revert back to the khaki uniform. All police personnel, including IPS (Indian Police Service) officers, will don the old uniform,’ Additional Director General S.R. Mardi told IANS.
Still, it will take more than six months for the 16,000-strong state police force to switch back to the conventional dress.
‘There will be a huge expenditure to buy stocks of new (khaki) uniforms and dispose off the surplus stock of the present blue ones,’ a senior police official posted in police headquarters said, adding that ‘the process to buy khaki will take not less than six months.’
The police force Jan 3 last year switched to a new blue uniform as part of an image makeover initiative.
Director General of Police D.S. Manhas announced in January last year that all men of the police force, including IPS officers, would wear the blue uniform. It would give a new identity to the police force and would even help shed their dry, brutal image.
The blue uniform included a pair of dark blue trousers, a light blue shirt and a blue beret cap. Accessories such as shoes and belts remained black. Both men and women were required to wear the same uniform.
West Bengal and Goa are the other Indian states to have replaced the traditional khaki for their police personnel with other coloured uniforms.
Government officials said it was a populist decision to revert to the old Khaki as the state assembly is to go to the polls this year. The government does not want to annoy the Himachal Pradesh Police Employees Welfare Federation, which has opposed the blue uniform, the officials added.
The central government also last year turned down the state’s proposal to allow IPS officers to wear the blue uniform. Any issue related to change of uniform of IPS officers comes under the purview of the IPS (Uniform) Rules of 1954 of the central government.
In June 2008, Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal had given the go-ahead to change the police uniform. The new dress was displayed at the Republic Day parade at the historic Ridge here that year.
Tags: Himachal Pradesh, Shimla
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