‘Immigrate through legitimate means’

Chandigarh, January 5
Dwelling on the agenda of youth empowerment through quality education, skills development and employment, most of overseas participants expressed serious concerns over deterioration in the standard of senior secondary education and post-matriculation dropout rate in Punjab at the Punjabi Parvasi Divas conference here today.

Canada as a partner country in this years' conference was well represented, both among speakers and the audience.

Though Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, NRI Affairs Minister Balbir Singh Bath, Chief Secretary SC Aggarwal and NRI Commissioner Vijay Partap were conspicuous by their absence, overseas Punjabis from Canada, including Ontario Minister Harinder Takhar, Alberta MLA Peter Sandhu and former MP Gurbax Malhi, talked about how Punjabis have scripted a success story in their present country of abode.

The participants endorsed the suggestion made by the secretary-general of the International Punjabi Chamber for Service Industry Gulshan Sharma that immigration overseas should be only through legitimate, decent and dignified means.

Satinder Dhiman, a management professor in North America, through video conferencing, expressed deep concern that the dropout rate of students for post-matriculatiuon education in Punjab had shot up to more than 90 per cent. Without education, he said, no state could come up economically.

Canada's Consul-General in Chandigarh Scot Slessor said what Canada needed most was young skilled people who were comfortable in speaking English.

More than 50 per cent of the total Indian immigrants in Canada come from Punjab and its surrounding areas. Scot Slessor said list of skills in demand in Canada were all prominently displayed on the government websites. Advanced countries did not need many people with higher educational qualifications, including PhDs, but they needed plumbers, drivers, mechanics or people trained in other trades in demand. Other basic requirement was that they should be conversant with English.

Ontario Minister for Government Services said Punjabis made up for their deficiencies in education with "jugads". With their hard work and unprecedented ability to adapt themselves to the new work and living environs, they had made major strides in every area.

Peter Sandhu from Alberta said when he left India more than three decades ago, the standard of high school education was pretty good. But unfortunately, it had deteriorated rapidly. The government needed to focus on reviving education network, besides imparting training in trades that were in demand overseas.

Inmates can contest poll but remain barred from voting

Kapurthala, January 5

Thousands of inmates languishing in various jails of the state would not be able to cast their franchise on January 30 even though those convicted under particular sections can contest the forthcoming assembly poll.

Such are the provisions of Section 62 (5) Representatives of the Public Act (RPA), 1951, that mention that no imprisoned person can vote. However, Section 8 of the RPA Act states that convicted persons with sentence less than two years can contest.

Additional Chief Electoral Officer Raj Kamal Chaudhary said the Punjab election office received instructions from the Election Commission of India a few days ago that no inmate be allowed to vote. However, he stated, if a person was convicted for some particular offences that entail less than two years of imprisonment, then he could contest the elections.

The offence includes crime under FERA, Corruption Act, Protection of Civil Rights Act, Sections 153 A of the IPC and various Sections of the IPC related with electoral malpractices, Customs Act, NDPS and TADA.

AIG (Jails) DK Sidhu said there were over 10,000 undertrials lodged in 23 jails of the state who would not be allowed to votes. These undertrials are lodges in eight central jails located at Kapurthala, Faridkot, Ferozepur, Patiala, Bathinda, Ludhiana, Amritsar and Gurdaspur (with capacity from 700 to 2800), six district jails at Ropar, Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur, Nabha, Sangrur and Mansa (with capacity below 500), eight sub jails at Dasuya, Pathankot, Phagwara, Patti, Malerkotla, Moga, Fazilka and Muktsar (with capacity from 25 to 250), Borstal jail at Ludhiana (capacity 500 prisoners from 18 to 21 years of age) and women jail at Ludhiana.

Taking strong exception to these provisions of the RPA Act, a human rights activist, advocate Rajinder Bhatia, has urged the Union Government to amend Section 62 (5) of the Act that prohibits the undertrials from voting.