The flood situation continues to be grim in the border district with standing crops on more than 40,000 acres of land submerged in around 50 villages situated near the Sutlej.

The Punjab and Haryana high court on Monday stayed e-auction of minor mineral quarries in 19 districts of Punjab.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court today stayed the e-auction of minor-mineral quarries in 19 districts of Punjab.

The e-auction of 115 minor-mineral — sand or gravel — quarries in 19 of the state’s 22 districts was to be held from July 1 to 3. But, the state had proposed to postpone the auction to July 9.

Digging deep into the issue of unlawful mining in Punjab, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed the Ferozepur Deputy Commissioner to “ensure illegal mining is brought to a halt”.

While the percentage of migratory birds which arrived at Harike wetland this year has gone down by almost 30 per cent, the number of species spotted has gone up by six.

The farmers whose land is situated near a lake across the barbed wire fencing at Sadiqi Joint Check Post (JCP) in the Fazilka sector allege the water of the lake is damaging their crops due to the flow of contaminated water from the Pakistani side.

The Pakistani territory begins on the other side of the lake. But the land under water falls into the Indian side. “The inflow of polluted water from Pakistan has started damaging the crops on the Indian side. Our land has started turning barren,” said Dr Jeet Singh and Babir Singh, local farmers.

Chandigarh: At 90 cancer patients for every one lakh population, Punjab has a higher cancer rate than the country’s. The Malwa region in that state has the highest average of 136 cancer patients per 1 lakh people, according to a Punjab government study released on Monday.

The national average is 80 cancer cases per lakh population. Data over the past five years show that on an average, 18 people die of cancer each day. There are 23,874 cancer patients in Punjab with 33,318 cancer-related deaths in last five years.

33,318 deaths reported in last five years, says first state-wide survey

The first ever state-wide survey of cancer victims in Punjab has revealed high incidence of cancer in the Malwa belt, even as the cancer cases in the state are only a little more than the national average. The survey has also reported average cancer prevalence of 216 cases per lakh population and suspected cancer cases of 319 per lakh population. If these two figures are taken into account, it seems a large number of cancer cases have been going undetected till now and that cancer incidence figures in Punjab could be much more than have been reported even in this survey. This was confirmed by Secretary, Health Vini Mahajan.

Ferozepur, January 6: Scores of stringent measures undertaken by the local administration to check illegal mining of sand have failed to produce desired results as the process continues unabated i

Prem Kumar Nirania, 32, is an advocate in Abohar’s local courts. In March, he saw a newspaper advertisement on a training camp at Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Ferozepur, and decided to join.