Professor hailing from Karnataka on a mission to promote Punjabi language
Chandigarh (PTI): A 47-year-old professor has been going around Punjab and exhorting shopkeepers and business owners to put up signboards in Punjabi language. The man carrying out a crusade to promote Punjabi is neither a native of Punjab nor did he speak the language in the first three decades of his life.
He is Pandit Rao Dharennavar, a native of Bijapur district in Karnataka who moved to Chandigarh in 2003 to take up a teaching job.
He is currently an assistant professor at the Postgraduate Government College in Sector 46 of Chandigarh.
His latest effort towards the promotion of Punjabi follows the Punjab government's move of exhorting people to put up signboards on private and public buildings across the state in Punjabi language before International Mother Language Day, which falls on February 21.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann last November called for a mass movement for putting up signboards prominently in Punjabi along with other languages as a mark of respect to the mother tongue.
Dharennavar carries a placard of Punjabi alphabets to urge shopkeepers to write names of their shops in Punjabi language. "I tell them they should give due respect to their mother tongue and write names of their shops in Punjabi before any other language," said Dharennavar. He says people should feel proud to put up signboards in Punjabi.
He said he is getting tremendous response from shopkeepers who pledge to put up signboards in Punjabi.
"I have already visited Khanna, Ludhiana, Moga, Patiala, Rajpura, Mohali and Fatehgarh Sahib and will be visiting Gurdaspur, Pathankot, Ferozepur and other cities as well," he added.
Dharennavar, whose mother tongue is Kannada, said he has also written to private universities in Punjab to put up their signboards in Punjabi.
The assistant professor had earlier raised his voice against the glorification of gun culture, drugs, liquor and violence in Punjabi songs.
Dharennavar said he learnt Punjabi after he realised that his students were not proficient in English.
"I knew nothing about Punjabi when I came to Chandigarh. I was teaching in English. One day, I decided that I should learn Punjabi and teach students in their mother tongue so that they can understand the subject better," he said.
Dharennavar has translated Sikh religious book "Japji Sahib" into Kannada language and "vachanas" from Kannada into Punjabi.
He stressed that like in Karnataka, there should be a translation centre in Punjab to translate the rich Punjabi literature, poems, novels into other languages.
"The works of famous poets like Sant Ram Udasi, Pash and Shiv Kumar Batalvi should be translated into other languages like Kannada, Tamil so more and more people should know Punjab's literature," he said.
Dharennavar also gives Punjabi lessons to doctors at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research who hail from southern states such as Karnataka and Tamil Nadu so that they can communicate with patients from Punjab in their local language. He has also written a book, "Sat Sri Akal Doctor Sahib", for the purpose.
Dharennavar has named his daughter after Mata Khivi, the wife of second Sikh Guru Angad Dev.
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19-yr-old woman found hanging from tree in UP village; juvenile held
Lucknow/Pratapgarh (UP) (PTI): Police have apprehended a 16-year-old boy for his alleged involvement in the rape and murder of a 19-year-old woman whose body was found hanging from a tree in a village here, officials said on Monday.
Additional Superintendent of Police (West), Brijnandan Rai, said that the body of a 19-year-old woman was found hanging from a tree in an orchard in the Manikpur police station area on Sunday morning. A post-mortem examination subsequently confirmed that she had been raped.
Police registered a case against unidentified persons under sections 103(1) (punishment for murder) and 70(1) (gangrape) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and initiated an investigation.
During the course of the investigation, the police found that the deceased was in contact with a juvenile who was also her relative.
Acting on this information, during a joint checking operation, sub-inspector Amit Kumar Singh of Manikpur police station and SOG In-charge Amit Kumar Chaurasia, along with their team, apprehended the 16-year-old near the Lehdari Ganga River bridge.
The search for other accused persons is ongoing, police said.
According to the police, the woman had gone to sleep after dinner on Saturday night but was found hanging in an orchard nearly 400 metres away from her home the following morning.
Additional Superintendent of Police (West), Brijnandan Rai, had earlier said that the circumstances suggest foul play.
"The victim's slippers and undergarments were recovered 50 metres away from the spot where the body was found. There are visible injury marks on her body," Rai said.
While locals have alleged that the woman was murdered after being raped, the ASP said that it is "prima facie a case of murder."
"Based on the complaint filed by the victim's brother, a case of murder has been registered against unidentified persons," the officer added.
Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, in a post on X in Hindi on Monday, said, "The news of the heinous murder of a Dalit daughter in Pratapgarh is deeply tragic and condemnable."
"The question remains: why does the spate of murders of 'PDA daughters' continue unabated in Uttar Pradesh? Are the BJP government's claims regarding women's safety merely hollow rhetoric, or is there, in fact, discrimination even in the provision of security for women?" he said.
"Whenever the 'wandering Honourable (ghumantu maananiye)' finds a moment of respite from election campaigning, he should cast a glance at the plight of the daughters of his own Uttar Pradesh. In any case, apart from injustice and oppression, no sister, daughter, or mother of this state holds any hope from you," Yadav added.
