The protest of electricity employees continued today as well against the privatization of the electricity department and against forcefully handing over the department employees to a private company without fixing the service conditions and stake of the employees and without taking the option and to cancel the LOI issued to the company illegally and rallies were held in all the offices during the lunch break.

While addressing the rallies, Union President Amrik Singh, General Secretary Gopal Dutt Joshi, Vice President Gurmeet Singh, Sukhwinder Singh, Swarn Singh, Vinay Prasad, Kashmir Singh, Paan Singh, Amit Dhigra, Virendra Singh, Lalit Singh, Satkar Singh, Harjinder Singh, Bhupinder Singh, Gagandeep, Jagtar Singh, Ram Gopal, Surinder Singh, Resham Singh and Federation President Raghveer Chand, Senior Vice President Rajinder Katoch, Harpal Singh, Toplan, former President Ram Saroop, Harinder Prasad etc. demanded to cancel the decision of selling the profit-making electricity department to a private company at a throwaway price and to cancel the LoI given to the company. And alleged that the administration officials are repeatedly flouting the rules and bidding process and questioned the working style of the officials for not cancelling the LOI despite the company repeatedly changing the conditions. And said that the officials are working in favour of the company and violating the service conditions of the employees and without taking the option from the employees, they are being forcibly handed over to the private company against their will. The speakers demanded to adjust other employees in the engineering department on the lines of disabled employees and appealed to the administrator to end discrimination against them as well.

In a closely contested fight, the INDIA bloc’s Congress-AAP alliance on Thursday failed to win the election to the Chandigarh mayor’s post, owing to cross-voting by three councillors, while the BJP's Harpreet Kaur Babla was elected the new incumbent.

Harpreet Kaur Babla got 19 votes, while her nearest rival AAP candidate Prem Lata got 17 votes.

There was a direct contest between the AAP’s Prem Lata and the BJP’s Harpreet Kaur Babla

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the Chandigarh mayoral election on Thursday, securing 19 votes in the 36-member House. Harpreet Kaur Babla, the BJP’s candidate, will serve as the new mayor. Meanwhile, Congress candidate from the INDIA alliance, Taruna Mehta, won the deputy mayor election.

According to the presiding poll officer, all 36 votes were polled, with no invalid ballots. Babla received 19 votes, while Prem Lata, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate backed by the Congress, received 17. Three councillors from the opposition alliance cross-voted in favour of the BJP, swinging the outcome.

The result is a setback for the AAP-Congress alliance, which had 19 councillors before the election. The alliance also expected support from its ex-officio member, Member of Parliament Manish Tewari, bringing its total to 20. The BJP, with 16 councillors, relied on defections to reach the majority mark of 19.

Vikas Nagar In an accident on Thursday late evening, two children got burnt in the fire coming out of a small cylinder. 14-year-old Ankit's face has been badly burnt by the flames reaching his face. While 4-year-old Rishabh's face also got burnt. The child's hair has burned. Both were first taken to Sector-6 Panchkula Hospital from where Ankit was referred to GMCH Sector-32 in critical condition.

The incident took place around 7:55 in the evening, when the two children got caught in the fire from the cylinder while cooking fire in house number 1495 in Vikas Nagar, Mauli Jagran. People thought that the cylinder had exploded. The police control room was immediately informed. Apart from the police, the fire department's vehicle and an ambulance from the hospital etc. reached the spot. The children were sent to Sector-6 hospital by ambulance.

Dense fog and low visibility on Thursday morning affected the flight schedule at the Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport, Chandigarh.

One flight was cancelled, while three departures were delayed till 10 am.

The departure to Delhi (6:55 am) was cancelled while to Chennai (7:20 am), Mumbai (9 am) and Delhi (7:40 am) were delayed.

The Delhi flight (7 am) arrival here touched down at 8:35 am.

Meanwhile, temperatures plummeted across North India, with the people of Chandigarh and neighbouring regions woke up to light rain on Thursday.

Punjab Information and Public Relations Department today organized third religious congregation and Guru Ka Langar dedicated to the birth anniversary of the Tenth Guru, Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji and for the universal welfare, on the advent of the new year.

During the event, which was held with profound devotion and religious fervour at Gurdwara Sahib, Punjab Civil Secretariat-1 here, Gurdwara Sahib Sector-11's Granthi Bhai Kashmir Singh recitated path of Sri Sukhmani Sahib. Subsequently, the renowned preacher Bhai Gurmeet Singh Shant performed soul-stirring Gurbani Kirtan in the Basant ragas.

60 new buses purchased by Chandigarh Transport Undertaking (CTU) are ready to ply on the roads of Chandigarh on Tuesday. The operation of these buses will pave the way for better connectivity to Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and other neighboring states. Many new routes will be started, which will directly benefit the people.

Punjab Governor and Chandigarh Administrator Gulab Chand Kataria flagged off these buses during a program organized at ISBT-17 on Tuesday. These 60 buses will run on 31 routes. Many of which are new and the number of buses has been increased on some old routes. Trial runs on these routes have been successful.

Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research’s (PGIMER) Department of Hepatology here on Friday announced the launch of a special walk-in OPD service to streamline the follow-up process for patients attending its liver clinic, taking care of approximately 1,000 patients weekly.

While commending on the initiative that aims to alleviate long waiting time, PGIMER Director Prof. Vivek Lal said this new online system is a step forward in patient care, enabling "us to provide timely consultations and reducing the pressure on our outpatient department".

Hospital Deputy Director (Administration) Pankaj Rai said the goal is to link this service with common service centres like e-Sampark and Lok Mitra Kendras in adjoining states to assist non-tech-savvy patients.

"We want to make this facility accessible to everyone, irrespective of their technological proficiency," he said.

A five-decade-old commercial building near the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Chandigarh's Sector 17, which had been declared unsafe earlier, collapsed on Monday morning.

However, there was no causality in the building collapse located in the heart of the city.

Eyewitnesses said the building collapsed at around 7 a.m. The adjoining building, which was once running the famed Mehfil restaurant, has also developed cracks and is partially damaged by the caving-in of the building.

Police and fire brigade teams have arrived at the spot.

The local administration had earlier declared the building unsafe and sealed it.

A BMW car met with an accident in Chandigarh. The car was speeding, due to which the driver lost control and the car collided with a tree. A 10-year-old child died in the accident.

Once again, the havoc of high speed has been seen in Chandigarh. Late Thursday night, a high-speed BMW car met with an accident. An innocent child riding in the car died in the accident. This accident happened near the airport light point. Late Thursday night at 1.30 am, a high-speed BMW car went out of control and collided with a tree. The car was badly damaged in the accident. 10-year-old Amen Verma, who was driving the car, died of head injury.

At the same time, Amen's father Awake Verma, a resident of Sector-27, has suffered serious injuries. Sector-31 police station has registered a case of negligent driving against Awake Verma. Awake Verma told the police that suddenly there was some problem in the brake of the car, due to which the brake did not work and the accident happened.