Fly to Srinagar on Volvo fare!

Air India’s special offer for Oct 10
Chandigarh, October 7
It will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for those who wish to travel from the city to Srinagar on October 10 as the fare to be charged by Air India that day is equal to the fare of Volvo buses for the 650-km journey. According to sources, this Rs-1,584 fare will be a one-time offer.
Air India also operates as a second line of transport between the city and the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir for the men in olive green.
Between 50 and 60 seats are vacant in the Air India flight, which will take off at 12:30 pm. These are now being offered to civilians planning to visit Srinagar.
Confirming this, Air India station manager MR Jindal has said this will be a temporary exercise as a few seats are available.
The aeroplane has a capacity of 172 seats, of which 152 are in the economy class and 20 in the executive class. Air India will charge only for a one-way journey.
According to sources, there is no proposal to start a new flight from Chandigarh to Srinagar in view of the financial crunch being faced by Air India.
A survey is being conducted to know its feasibility, but there the possibility of starting it is remote as the company is not able to pay salaries to its employees for months together.
The private airliner Kingfisher, which has been running into huge losses, has already decided to discontinue its economy class Kingfisher Red flights.

Consumer Matters

LIC told to pay Rs 1.65 lakh 

Chandigarh, October 7
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has slapped a fine of Rs 30,000 on Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) for causing mental agony and harassment to a Sector 52 resident.
In his complaint, Amit Kumar, a resident of Kajehri village in Sector 52, had averred that his wife took a policy for a sum of Rs 1.25 lakh on October 19, 2009, valid for one year from November 3, 2009, and was required to pay Rs 510 per month as premium.
He said on the same evening, his wife fell ill and got treated at the PGI where it came to light that she was four-month pregnancy. On December 21, 2009, the Amit got her wife admitted to the PGI with the complaint of shortness of breath and irregular respiration. It was diagnosed that she was a case of swine flu which ultimately led to her death after three days along with the foetus in the womb. Thereafter, he submitted the claim form along with requisite documents, but the opposite party rejected the claim on the ground of suppression of material facts regarding her health at the time of proposing for the insurance policy.
The counsel for the LIC pleaded that the claim of the complainant had been repudiated as the insured did not act in good faith and suppressed the true and correct facts from the opposite party at the time of taking the policy. The opposite party further pleaded that the life insured became aware about her pregnancy on December 19, 2009, but she deliberately did not disclose it to the opposite party while filling up the proposal form.

Corbusier was a perfectionist: Alumnus

Chandigarh, October 7
Dr Veena Garella, a first-batch student of the Chandigarh College of Architecture (CCA) in 1961, still remembers her interaction with Le Corbusier, the creator of Chandigarh, who told her that to be an architect, one needed to wear a 16-pocket jacket. She remembers clearly that he himself was wearing one at that time.
Speaking on the sidelights of the golden jubilee celebrations of the CCA, Dr Varella said she had met Le Corbusier when he had come to inaugurate the college. Dr Garella knew a little French. This gave her some time with the legendary figure in the world of architecture. Her batch of 1961, naturally, is the toast of the entire gathering.
She said Le Corbusier explained her about the utility of each pocket separately. He had assigned a distinct place to different tools used by a planner, including his pen, pencil, rulers, thread and even spectacles.
She remembered that he would say, “Always remember the number 16 to tally with the number of tools needed before commencing your job.” The master planner would explain the utility of each pocket. In fact, there was a detailed planning involved even in keeping the tools specifically in different pockets. There was a flow in the manner in which a workman could carry his job in case he had planned his pocket layout, she said.
She was just one among over 100 odd ex-students who managed to reach the college. For the gathering, it was largely a trip down the memory lane; about the times they shared; and how their alma mater had helped them reach places of eminence in different fields.
A professor at the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi, fondly recalled her first day at the college when she met the master architect. “He was very clear in his ideas. He explained the entire concept of the city point by point like a small stream getting together along the journey from the mountain of wisdom to take the form of a river of knowledge,” she recalled.

UT Cops strike big

Recover 42 stolen vehicles from gang
Chandigarh, October 7
The UT police today busted an inter-state gang comprising vehicle lifters, scrap dealers, insurance company surveyors and second-hand car dealers which adopted a peculiar modus operandi of selling off stolen vehicles with the original documents of vehicles damaged in accidents. The police recovered a total of 42 vehicles, including high-end cars and SUVs worth over Rs 2 crore, following the arrest of five of an unknown number of gang members.
The 42 vehicles included a Mitsubishi Pajero, two Toyota Innovas, five Mahindra Scorpios, four Tata Safaris, three Mahindra Baleros, three Hyundai Vernas, two Chevrolet Taveras, four Maruti Swifts, three Tata Indigos, two Maruti Wagon Rs, four Maruti Zens, two Hyundai Santros, three Maruti-800s, two Tata Indicas and one Hyundai i 20 and Maruti Alto each.
The arrested members of the gang were identified as Harinder Singh, alias Goldy, a second-hand car dealer, Vipin Kumar, a scrap dealer
and his accomplices Mohammed Nadeem, Mohammed Amir and Kasim. At least three accomplices of the arrested accused identified as Kala, a resident of Meerut, and Kamal and Iqbal, both belonging to Muradabad, are absconding.
The police said car dealer Harinder used to sell second-hand cars in the tricity at the second-hand car market in Sector 7 every Sunday. All 42 cars have been recovered from the purchasers who had bought the cars from the city’s second-hand car market who were ignorant of the fact that they had bought stolen vehicles with documents belonging to an altogether other vehicle.
The police has managed to trace only two vehicles out of the total 42, which were stolen from Chandigarh. In all, the police has managed to trace from where 11 of the 42 vehicles had originally been stolen from. Investigations are on to ascertain from where the rest of the cars had been stolen.
Terming it as a deep nexus among vehicle thieves, scrap dealers, insurance company agents and second-hand car dealers, UT SSP Naunihal Singh said the accused used to sell off the stolen vehicles in car bazaars of various states after pasting number plates, chassis and engine numbers of those vehicles, which had been completely damaged in accidents.

Modus operandi

• Scrap dealer Vipin and his accomplices used to purchase vehicles damaged in accidents from either the owner of the vehicles with the help of a surveyor or in auctions/direct sale of accidental total loss vehicles from insurance companies
• They would then either steal or get stolen vehicles from other accomplices
• Would either punch the chassis number and engine number of the accident vehicle on the stolen vehicle or cut the plate bearing these numbers and fix the same on stolen vehicles in Meerut
• Would sell these converted stolen vehicles to innocent people as genuine vehicles in the open market

Police yet to nab any thief

Even though the police has arrested five persons involved in the racket, it is yet to arrest any vehicle thief who stole the cars and then sold these off to car dealers with documents of accident vehicles. The police said the case was at an initial stage and there was still plenty to unfold in the coming days, as the gang was large and more arrests were likely in the coming days

Reprieve for PPP chief’s kin; not to be arrested sans notice

Chandigarh, October 7
Another relative of People's Party of Punjab president Manpreet Singh Badal has expressed apprehension of being implicated in a false case by the Punjab Police.
Taking cognisance of petitioner Amardeep Singh Brar’s apprehensions, the vacation Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court today issued directions, which will ensure he is not caught unawares.
Issuing notice of motion on his petition filed through counsel Pankaj Bhardwaj, Justice Jitendra Chauhan directed the issuance of a two-day prior notice in case he is wanted by any branch of the Punjab Police, including the Vigilance Bureau.
Justice Chauhan also directed the State of Punjab and other respondents to ensure the copy of the FIR, in case of its registration, is handed over to the applicant. The directions are significant, as in the event of an FIR being registered against the petitioner, he will be in a better position to defend his liberty after going through the contents of the FIR.
The petitioner, putting up in Sector 11 here, had earlier claimed he was the nephew of estranged SAD leader Manpreet Singh Badal; and was apprehensive of being targeted due to political vendetta. He had added that those considered close to Manpreet were finding themselves at the receiving end.
The petitioner contended he too had participated in Manpreet’s Jago Punjab Yatra. The case will now come up on October 12 for further hearing.