Amritsar, January 25
It’s the simplest way to dispose of the garbage but the harm involved in the process is more severe. The sanitary employees of the Municipal Corporation prefer to burn the garbage in the bin itself, thus leaving the environment heavily polluted.

The burnt lid of the garbage bin (see picture) at the Forest Chowk, Mall Road, speaks volumes about how this ‘unpardonable’ attitude of the sanitary employees goes unchecked by the authorities who instead of lifting the garbage from the bin to the designated place, burn it inside the bin to save “their time and extra efforts”.

Trash burning in barrels can smolder and as a result produce greater amounts of harmful chemicals. Harmful chemicals can also be present in the ash from the fire, the experts said. Trash containing plastics, polystyrene (such as foam cups), and bleached or colored papers are examples of materials that can produce harmful chemicals when burnt.

Experts believe that the smoke from burning trash in a barrel contains particulate matter, carbon monoxide, hydrogen chloride, hydrogen cyanide, benzene, styrene, formaldehyde, arsenic, lead and chromium etc. Some of these chemicals are found in smoke from any fire.

Although substances such as particulate matter, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde can cause immediate health effects with enough exposure, some chemicals such as dioxin can build up in foods and in human body. Some of these chemicals can remain in the environment for a long time. The continuous smoke causes a lot of irritation to eyes and throat.

Amritsar, January 25
Although sewerage, water and other basic amenities in Ward 22 are reasonably good, the massive irregular traffic in the area is what needs to be in order. The Tribune team, while visiting the area, found that encroachments on both sides of the main road, including Queen’s Road, Cooper Road and Madan Mohan Malviya Road, passing through the ward were the major reasons for traffic jams.

The volume of traffic multiplies here as these roads lead to the old walled city, besides to Batala Road, Majitha Road and towards the posh areas of Mall Road and Lawrence Road. The haphazard parking on both sides of the road is the major cause of traffic woes as there is no parting place in the absence of any planning. New hotels and restaurants have been coming up on Queen’s Road, while roadside car repair shops and two-wheeler showrooms park vehicles on the road and the footpaths have also disappeared due to these encroachments.

The areas that come under this ward include Shivala Colony, Hukum Singh Road, Krishna Square, Hussainpura West, Muslim Ganj, Milap Avenue and Joshi Colony.

The shopkeepers, dealing in sale-purchase of two-wheelers, have encroached upon the pavements on Hukum Singh Road while repeated requests to remove them have fallen on deaf ears. “The Municipal Corporation authorities have been urged a number of times to take some concrete steps to remove these encroachments as they become causes for mishaps for the pedestrians who have to move on busy roads leading to the bridge, but nothing has been done so far,” rued Brij Bedi, social activist and resident of the area.

Amritsar, January 25
Dubbing the institution of langar as a unique entity showcasing high spiritual values imbibed in the Sikh tenets, Bob Dechert, Canadian MP from Mississaugua-Erindale constituency of Toronto, not only partook of langar but also watched its preparation for over an hour during his visit to the Golden Temple.

Bob Dechert was accompanied by Toronto-based Conservative Party leader Harry Dhaliwal and NRI Gurdev Mundi. He remained at the shrine for over three hours and also listened to gurbani.

It was Bob’s first visit to Punjab. He was particularly amused to see the volunteers immersed in langar sewa.

“I have never come across such a scene before. I am amazed to see that so many men and women are involved in the process.

It is a supernatural experience for me. I would like to come here once again and I want to listen to recital of paath sitting among the devotees,” said Bob Dechert who, was also honoured by the SGPC with a “Siropa” and was also given a picture of the Golden Temple by the SGPC officials led by Bhai Ram Singh.

He also enquired about the Sikh principles and way of life and interacted with the devotees asking them about their spiritual experiences.

Amritsar, January 25
Even as the state government contemplates a sports policy for the betterment of sports, there needs an immediate attention towards the ground realities, especially at the school and college levels.

A look at the school-level sports infrastructure would give a sad picture. A few private schools have their own playgrounds and the government schools also lag far behind. A majority of the schools don’t have courts for games like basketball, badminton and tennis or grounds for cricket, football and hockey.

In the city, several educational institutions, including Guru Nanak Dev University, Khalsa College and DAV College have their own sprawling playing fields, but how many have access to them is the question.

There is only one tennis court situated in Ram Bagh. However, the future of this court is also bleak as the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has already ordered the Punjab Lawn Tennis Association to close it down, said Dr Sameer Rai, association’s joint secretary.

More than 150-year-old court has been used to coach children at charges of Rs 300-350 while in Delhi and Chandigarh, coaching charges are Rs 2000-2500.

Rai said the association, affiliated with the All-India Lawn Tennis Association, if given autonomy of the ground, was capable of creating world-class infrastructure for conducting international matches.

He said the players like Sania Mirza, Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupati and Somdev had enthused many to adopt tennis as a professional game, but the indifferent attitude of the government was marring the future prospects.

The infrastructure for our national game hockey was also not up to the mark. Olympian Balwinder Shammi said though there was an astroturf in Guru Nanak Dev University, not everyone had the access to it. He said the city required another astroturf so that children of different schools could practise. It is pertinent to mention here that the city has produced many international hockey players, including Nirmal Singh, Ajit Pal Singh and recently Lovedeep Singh and Gurjant Singh who has played the Asia Cup.

For badminton, there are two courts being run near Gandhi Ground. Barring a couple of schools, there were no badminton courts available. Rajan Kumar, secretary, Amritsar Badminton Association, said two courts in Goal Bagh were defunct now.

“At least eight more courts are required, besides modernisation of the game is need of the hour. The city has produced two Arjuna awardees in the game - Dinesh Khanna and Davinder Ahuja - while many budding players have been making waves in national-level badminton championships. Recently Amritsar remained overall champion in various competitions,” said Rajan.

Even for cricket, the infrastructure was found to be negligible. The city is associated with cricket legends like Madan Lal, Bishan Singh Bedi, Mohinder Amarnath and Harvinder Singh, yet least has been contributed by them to promote cricket infrastructure. Gandhi Ground is the only place for cricket which is being run by persons not related to the game in any way. “Expecting them to promote cricket at the grassroots level is nothing but foolishness,” rued a former coach at the ground. He alleged the politics rules the roost here.

Dr Kanwaljit Singh, Director of Sports, Guru Nanak Dev University, however, said that lack of encouragement at the school level seldom infused interest for sports among children. “The university has the best of infrastructure in any discipline but we don’t have children who can be trained professionally in sports. Interest has to be developed from the school level which is not there,” he said.

Amritsar, January 25
A joint Indo-German workshop on “Bioinformatics in human genetics: mutations, microarray analysis and ontologies” began at the Centre for Genetic Disorder, Guru Nanak Dev University, in collaboration with the Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, and the Institutes for Human Genetics and Medical Genetics, Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany, here today.

The workshop is in continuation of joint Indo-German cooperation initiated by Prof Jai Rup Singh, founder coordinator, Centre for Genetic Disorders and Vice-Chancellor of the Central University of Punjab.

Dr Peter Nick Robinson, Head, Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Institute for Medical Genetics, Humboldt-University, Berlin, is the overseas course coordinator for the workshop.

As many as 20 delegates from different states, consultants, scientists, senior lecturers, lecturers, research associates, programmers and researchers in the field of genetics from reputed institute and universities are participating.

Dr Vanita Kumar, Head, Centre for Genetic Disorder and Course Coordinator, said in her introductory remarks that the course of this workshop would include exploration of different genetic database to extract information so as to identify disease-linked changes in different genes and detect copy number variants which were important causes of diseases like cancer, spinal muscle atrophy and complex neurological.

During the five-day workshop, training would also be given to analyse patients’ data using high throughput genome analyses techniques such as microarray technology, computation predictions to identify novel disease linked genes for hereditary diseases and to explore phenotypic manifestations of hereditary diseases and to perform clinical differential diagnosis in human genetics diseases. 

Amritsar, January 25
Drug abuse cuts across age, class, ethnic and gender lines. However, in Punjab it is more spread in the age group of 18-35, said Kunwar Vijay Partap Singh, former SSP of Amritsar, while delivering a lecture on “How to tackle the menace of drugs.”

The function was organised by the Students Welfare Department of Guru Nanak Dev University, in association with Chronic Care Foundation, New Delhi.

Dr Inderjit Singh, Registrar of the university, presided over the function, while Kunwar Vijay Partap Singh was the chief guest.

Dr R.S. Sandhu, senior professor of sociology, delivered a lecture on “Drug addiction: A social problem.”

A nukkad natak “Nasha Mukt Punjab” was also preformed by Chronic Care Foundation on the occasion.

Vijay Partap Singh said drug abuse played a detrimental role in our social system and increased rates of crime and violence, susceptibility to HIV/AIDS and hepatitis, demand for treatment and a breakdown in social behaviour.

While talking about the role of the police in tackling the menace, he said a police advisory committee had been set up to tackle the menace. He said the committee, consisting of intellectuals, educationists and professionals, would suggest measures to curb the supply line of drugs and also to create awareness among the masses to reduce the demand.

Dr Sandhu said in India, 62.5 million people used alcohol, 8.75 million used cannabis, two million used opiates, and 0.6 million used sedatives or hypnotics. He said about 17 to 26 per cent of these people could be classified as dependent users who needed urgent treatment.

He said according to a household survey in different regions of Punjab, the extent of drug addiction varied from 61 to 68.6 per cent. Dr Sandhu said during his research it was found that 73.50 per cent of drug addicts belonged to the age group of 16-35 years. He said 56 per cent of the drug addicts were married. The findings revealed that more illiterates (40.66 per cent) and those with low level of education (22.33 per cent) were susceptible to drugs in rural areas, whereas more educated youth (44.67 per cent) were susceptible to drugs in the urban areas. He said 59.33 per cent of drug addicts belonged to nuclear families.

Dr Singh said a majority of the respondents (47.8 per cent) used two or more drugs in combination. “Bhukki” was used mainly in Malwa and use of alcohol was more in Majha and Doaba. Synthetic drugs were used mainly in the rural areas of this district, followed by Jalandhar, and were more popular among youth. Similarly, unmarried and graduates preferred smack, while illiterate and less educated preferred “bhukki”, he added.

According to him, research found that the main reasons for drug addiction were unemployment, easy availability of drugs and corruption in society, which consequently lead to inefficient implementation of drug prevention and lack of awareness among the people and the government.

He said it was very unfortunate that drug addiction was still perceived as an individual problem or a family problem and not a social one and added that a limited perception of the problem resulted in improper diagnosis and inadequate solutions. While talking about the preventive approach, he said primary prevention involved reducing the availability of drugs and preventing the initiation of drug abuse by introducing educational programmes for those who are affected.

Amritsar, January 25
The Rotary Club of Amritsar organised its 10th mass marriage function here in which as many as 50 couples from poor families tied knot.

Sunil Kapoor, project director of the club, said the club initiated the mass marriage project in 1998-99 and more than 284 marriages have been solemnised till date.

He said the club provides items of daily use including furniture, clothes, utensils, a set of jewelry and several other items donated by large number of philanthropists and club members for this function.

Earlier, BJP MP Navjot Singh Sidhu and Rotary Governor K C Kalra blessed the couple.

Amritsar, January 25
Over 400 students from schools, colleges and universities participated in the National Science Fest held at DAV College.

The students showcased their skills in poster making, quiz, declamation and model presentation contests.

College Principal Satish Kumar Sharma exhorted the participants to give their 100 per cent to make most of the opportunity.