Thursday, November 26, 1998
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REGIONAL BRIEFS | Thursday, November 26, 1998 |
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He now trains his guns on law-breakers First it was his fight against enemies outside the country and now he is battling social adversaries within, but Lt.-Col D S Chauhan (retd) will be a fighter always. Colonel Chauhan became pradhan of Deothi panchayat in Theog tehsil in the early nineties and soon became chairman of pradhans' association due to his involvement in local problems. He fought a very long battle against illicit quarrying in the area and was ultimately successful in stopping it. Quarrying, which is extremely harmful and highly damaging to the environment had become a grave problem in the area. It resulted in heavy soil erosion on account of blasting at the site and uprooting of a large number of trees. Four major landslides occurred owing to loose strata on the slopes caused by the blasts. He created public opinion against quarrying and started raiding the sites along with local people and officials. He approached the state pollution control board, the mining department and finally the national environment commission for a ban on quarrying at Theog. Colonel Chauhan is also a constant threat to the forest mafia in this area. Many a time he has brought to the Forest Department's notices, the illegal felling and got unlicensed timber seized. The department has appreciated and acknowledged his efforts from time to time. The locals are also indebted to him for saving their forest wealth. He has also been instrumental in checking the illicit distillation of liquor in villages. With the help of local youth and police raids were conducted on manufacturing sites and the malady brought to an end. With his very long experience as a chief instructor in the Army's Mountain Commando School, Colonel Chauhan played a vital role in the uplift of the poor in his individual capacity as well as during his presidentship of the panchayat. He was instrumental in getting a road built which is proving a lifeline, to an interior village called Basti Janahan. Besides he has got water supply brought to a remote village, Chadreen. In the absence of any road the villagers had to pay Rs 100 per quintal to carry their goods up to the road. He was also helpful in the opening of ration depots at these villages. He is now working to raise the ecological awareness, and provide financial assistance to the Scheduled Castes and backward sectors in his panchayat, which is a backward area. Application to investigate drug The first Investigational New Drug Application (INDA) was filed in India recently by the New Drug Discovery Research (NDDR) group of Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. In an interview with this correspondent, the group's executive director, Dr Sudershan K Arora, said INDA had been filed with the Drug Control Authority of India (DCAI) for parvosin, a potential drug for checking benign prostatic hyperplasia. Parvosin is awaiting human trial by the DCAI following which it would be the first indigenously developed molecule in the annals of Indian pharmaceutical industry to undergo human trial in India. Dr Arora said the filing of INDA was an important milestone in the development of pharmaceutical research in the country. With the pressure on protecting intellectual property rights, Indian pharmaceutical companies would need to invest more on research and development, he added. "Parvosin had been christened after Dr Parvinder Singh, Chairman and Managing Director of Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. Parvosin has been designed and tested by NDDR scientists to overcome drawbacks associated with existing drugs," he pointed out. Parvosin was orally active, and 10-fold more selective in improving BPH than lowering blood pressure. Pharmacokinetic studies had established its route of administration blood level, route of elimination, in animals. Toxicologists had pronounced parvosin to be safe molecule. Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is a common, progressive condition of the aged male population which is characterised by obstruction of the urethra by an enlarged prostate, and manifested in increased frequency of urination, poor urine stream and hesitancy or delay in micturition. It has been established that old age, hyper-responsive prostate to circulating sex hormones and elevated sympathetic nervous activity are some of the precipitating factors for BPH. Although surgery is the first option for treating BPH, its medical management has become increasingly popular in recent years. Antagonists of the sympathetic nervous system provide cheap, quick and symptomatic relief of BPH. However use of these agents for BPH such as Terazosin is plagued by side-effects like a sudden fall in blood pressure accompanied by a change in posture, light headedness, etc. Dr Arora, who is a Ph. D. in medicinal chemistry from Kurukshetra University, left for the USA in the early eighties where he worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr J. Kegan and Dr D.L. Venton. In this period he published several papers in reputed journals. "With the help of my team members like Dr J.B. Gupta (pharmacology), Dr M.R. Marathe (toxicology) and Dr Anita Mehta (medicinal chemistry), I have achieved my goal of filing the first INDA in India for Ranbaxy Laboratories", says Dr Arora. Harmful water supply The groundwater of Jalalabad and its surrounding area which is also the source of drinking water supply for the Punjab Sewerage and Water Supply Board is having harmful chemical substances much more than the limits specified by the World Health Organisation. As per, WHO estimates, the total dissolved solids in drinking water should be 150 to 700 ppm whereas it varies from 600 to 1200 ppm in the water of various tubewells of Water Supply Board of Jalalabad and 1000 to 2500 ppm in various handpumps particularly those surrounding Jalalabad. Moreover the fluoride content in the town's water supply is three to five ppm instead of one ppm. According to the local orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Anil Aggarwal, the number of cases of back pains, fluorotic spine and fluorotic teeth are much more in this area. The people of this area are recognised by the discolouration of their teeth. Besides the uric acid level here ranges between five to nine mg, as against three to five mg, which results in joint and muscular pains. To find a solution, an entrepreneur of Fazilka had a unique idea of supplying river water from the Rajasthan feeder at Dhippanwali village. He started supplying this canal water after filtration, which has a TDS of not more than 200, in sealed cans of 20 litres for Rs 10 per 20 litre can. Whereas the upper and middle class families have switched over to drinking this canal water, notwithstanding a difference in taste, yet the masses of this border town are still hoping the Punjab Government would sanction a scheme to supply river water instead of ground water. ( Contributed by
Kanwar Yogendra, Sameer Sabharwal and Ashok Grover ) |
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