‘MP should put people before self’
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, April 27 — With the final mandate now resting in the hands of the people to elect their leader, TNS contacted some intellectuals in the city to have their idea about an ideal MP, especially at a time when the common man felt “let down” by the politicians and their “number games”.

“The common voter is very angry at the state of things today. In fact, the way these elections have again been imposed on us, for the third time in a row, shows ‘death of consciousness’ of the Congress, the black-mail politics of the likes of Jayalalitha, and the appeasement policies of the BJP. As far as an ideal MP is concerned, we need a leader who is a man of the masses, and who actually thinks on the lines of doing something for the country. But in these times, the politicians seem to have lost their values, and their convictions. Even the President does not seem to be above suspicion, and that is very unfortunate”, said Prof Jagdish Kalra, from the English Department, Panjab University.

Dr Y.N. Mehra, a retired Dean of the PGI and an ENT specialist blamed the politicians for the present crisis saying, “We desperately seem to need a man today who works not for his personal interests or his party’s interests, but the interests of the people. But that would be hard to come by.

We all know that this fantastic expenditure on elections could have been avoided, because even though the mandate might be in the hands of the people, we still do not know what we will get into again. Out of the present lot of the politicians, it is very difficult to choose our leader. There is a total disinterest in the political tamasha, as far as the common man is concerned. And unfortunately even talking or writing about such things is not going to help much I”.

Curiously enough, though most people talked to said that they had lost all hope as far as the present politicians were concerned, quite a few still seem to admire the poet-politician Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the “man more than the politician”.

Said Prof D.R. Sharma, of the English Department, Panjab University, “Every Indian is today frustrated seeing the ‘wrestling’ going on amongst the politicians. And personally I do not think much of politicians, and even though I do not like the BJP, I do admire Vajpayee. If a man like him, who still has maintained some decorum and decency, could be strengthened, then something could be done for this nation. Actually, in my judgement he is still the best bet. That is the kind of leader I would like to have”.

“I am also all for A.B. Vajpayee. In the last three months he has been quite in control. He has that feel for the country. The kind of leader I would like to see would be someone who has his ears down to the country’s economy. The kind of economy we have today dwindles at the very mention of some threat from some Ammaji”, said Group Captain P.S. Soni (retd).

Col Harsharan Singh (retd) said, “For me the ideal MP would be one who in his election manifesto would first file an honest report about his expenditure in the elections. A leader who enters the political arena not for his self aggrandisement, or to take care of his personal perks and interests, but to legislate for the people. A leader like Vajpayee could be one choice, but then he is a very weak leader.

As far as the matter of elections is concerned, I think this is a better option for the country instead of simply horse-trading which breeds more corruption.

Tele-medicine plan for PGI
By Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 27 — An electronic connection that will enable patients to seek long-distance consultancy from leading doctors is being set up to interlink three medical institutions of the country, including the PGI.

The Rs 10-crore project plans to interlink the PGI, Chandigarh, the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi and Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute (SGPGI), Lucknow. The first meeting to put the project on rails is scheduled to be held in Chandigarh on May 3.

The project, cleared by the Department of Electronics, Government of India, is termed as “tele-medicine”. Explaining the concept, Director, PGI, Prof B.K. Sharma, said a patient’s clinical features, diagnosis, test reports, X-rays, CT-scans, ultra sound and even MRI reports can be transmitted electronically to doctors sitting in another institute.

A report or consultancy can be had from an expert sitting several 100 miles away, saving the patient a trip to that institute. If required, the patient can be called over by the expert, but a major part of the consultancy can be done electronically, said Prof Sharma. This will be beneficial in case of serious patients and those suffering from rare diseases. The quick transmission of images and response by experts will help the patients.

In the second phase, the three institutes will be linked with a hospital each in their respective periphery thus extending the reach of “tele-medicine “. The PGI will be ultimately linked with Patiala. Prof B.D. Gupta, a former head of the radiodiagnosis department , PGI, has been made the co-ordinator of the project that is been started to see the feasibility of operating such a system in India.

Such concepts are already working in the USA. A doctor had come from the USA a couple of years ago and offered expertise to the PGI, Prof Sharma said. “However, we did not require foreign expertise and, of course, we could not pay in dollars as sought by that doctor,” the Director added. So a similar proposal was submitted to the Government of India.

Now the Department of electronics has approved the project. The transmission of images etc besides setting up of the equipment will be handled by experts and consultancy will be given by doctors.

LS seat: race hots up for candidates
By Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, April 27 — The dissolution of the 12th Lok Sabha has set the ball rolling, not for the major political parties to win back their voters immediately with long and unending lists of accomplishments in the recent past but for the candidates to launch their campaigns to get the party ticket for the ensuing elections.

Two major claimants for the Chandigarh parliamentary seat — the BJP-SAD alliance and the Congress — have been unable to come out of their organisational problems since the last elections to the Lok Sabha in February last year.

These rumblings within the local units throw the field open for all probable candidates, though choice may not be wide.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiromani Akali Dal alliance witnessed a vertical split with the present ruling group in the local Municipal Corporation taking side with the sitting MP, Mr Satya Pal Jain, while the rest led by the present local unit chief supported by his predecessor and the alliance partner, the SAD, preferred to sit in the opposition.

The internal wranglings of the BJP brought the working of the Municipal Corporation to a virtual standstill last year after the President of the unit, Mr Dharam Paul Gupta, ordered the suspension and subsequent expulsion of Mr O.P. Goyal, a councillor, from the party.

The fight took a serious turn when the BJP-SAD councillors led by their respective local unit Presidents, Mr Gupta and Mr Gurpartap Singh Riar, staged a dharna outside the office of the Adviser to the Administrator of Chandigarh to protest against, what they called, "illegal functioning of the Mayor and the corporation". The protestors were arrested and charged with a criminal offence. They refused to take bail and demanded the transfer of the then Adviser to the Administrator, Mr Jagdish Sagar, whom they accused of taking side with Mr Satya Pal Jain and the expelled BJP councillors.

The BJP infighting had been continuing for a long time even before Mr Jain was elected for the first time to the 11th Lok Sabha. Before the 1996 Lok sabha elections even a BJP worker set himself on fire in protest against the grant of the party ticket to Mr Jain.

Before the 1998 Lok Sabha elections, the local unit of the SAD and alliance partners, raised a lot of hue and cry and opposed the candidature of Mr Jain, but ultimately succumbed to pressure from the party high command to support him again.

After his second successive election from Chandigarh, things did not improve for Mr Jain in the local politics as he continued to earn the wrath of the BJP and the SAD alike.

How the two local units work out their strategies in the coming elections remains to be seen. In all probability, the BJP high command may repose its confidence in the sitting MP at the time of allotment of the party ticket. It is a different matter that Mr Jain's two terms in Parliament totalled a little less than three years.

The situation has been no better on the Congress front, the second major political party aspiring to win this seat. Efforts of the party high command to resolve differences between the two major groups within the Chandigarh Territorial Congress Committee have shown little results. Instead, a new group of the Youth Congress has also emerged on the scenario.

In fact, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, after assuming the command of electioneering before the last Lok Sabha poll, came here to launch Mr Pawan Kumar Bansal's campaign. Mr Bansal, though unsuccessful on the last two occasions, will be a strong candidate for the party ticket this time also.

Also in the race for the Congress ticket will be the CTCC President, Mr Venod Sharma. Both Mr Bansal and Mr Sharma will have a third opponent in Mr Manish Tewari, the present All-India Youth Congress chief. Mr Tewari has held several important organisational and party posts, including joint secretaryship of the AICC. In fact, he is perhaps the first Youth Congress chief who has neither been an MLA nor an MP to hold this position.

While the race for the nominations of the BJP and the Congress hots up in the coming days, others may also stake their claim to the lone Chandigarh seat.

One has seen very little of Mr Harmohan Dhawan eversince the last Lok Sabha elections. He is considered an evergreen candidate for the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat. His party, Samajwadi Janata Party, does not have any organisational problems except that two of the councillors of the Municipal Corporation elected on the SJP ticket later defected to the Congress. There have been a few other defections from the SJP to the Congress, including by Mrs Janak Arora.

‘Obsolescence ails shooting’
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, April 27 — Why do many teams taking part in shooting competitions fail to excel in the face of an organised assault ? The blame lies on unscientific training procedures and lack of access to the latest weapons.

This observation was made by a specialist in sports medicine, Dr Devi Singh Chouhan, Commandant and Chief Medical Officer, and Commandant M.I. Khan, Central School of Weapons and Tactics, Indore. Both BSF officers were evaluating the performance of their team at the 42nd All-India Police Duty Meet held at Bhanu and suggesting measures for improvement.

Talking to TNS at the Police Officers Institute, Sector 26, they said that not only were the weapons used by the top shooters old as per international standards, but there was not enough ammunition to go for year-long practise. Coupled with the lack of knowledge about the latest training procedures and exclusion of sports medicine doctors, these compounded the problem, thereby affecting the performance levels of the competitors.

Dr Chouhan said that the involvement of sports medicine professionals was the norm in countries presently topping in professional and amateur categories of shooting, not only at the international level, but in competitions at the state and national levels. It was sad that the role of sports medicine and the inclusion of qualified individuals in training the teams had been, at best, marginal.

Talent alone was no guarantee for winning a medal. A handpicked person had to be put through a vigorous training and coaching period and a check maintained on his general health, physique, dedication, interest and ability to turn a bad situation into a winning one. These were the traits looked for in a potential medal-winner.

Highlighting the medical aspect of shortlisting, he said that the ideal age was between 18 and 20 years and the person should have excelled himself at the lower levels of competition. His action and ability to perform under pressure should be studied and any aberration in the neuromuscular, visual and psychological set-up, the vital requirements to become an, ace shooter, corrected.

Besides this, each team should have its own doctor and coach, who should devise separate methods, keeping in mind the emotional make-up of the man in question. They should also be exposed to new tactical skills besides imparting yoga training to adjust their inbuilt biological clock. Extra diet and supplements keeping in mind the climate at the venue of the competitions, should be given, he added.

Another must was a psychological test of all the players before a tournament as high expectations and their reflection on the team often landed the team in trouble. Any visible stress should be checked and counselling provided.

Mr Khan, who has been connected with the training activities of the teams, said the BSF would be among the first in the country to have trained sports medicine professionals coaching their teams and accompanying them to various service meets and other competitions from this year. An elaborate programme had been chalked out by the authorities, the results of which would be visible soon.

The lack of access to the latest weapons was a great liability whenever their teams competed with professionally-trained teams with the latest weapons. While there was a resource crunch and the availability of ammunition left much to be desired, the BSF has gone ahead and constructed an Air Shooting Gallery at Indore. With the provision of simultaneous shooting at 30 of the state-of-the art Speitz targets, and an echo range, the gallery was world class.

But all this was lying unutilised in the absence of regular coaching camps organised by the NRAI and the NSCC. In fact, our country could host national and international events here, he said.

The practice of previous medal- winners training the new lads had remained unchanged for decades. While champions could give valuable advice, it was upto trained coaches to impart and hone up the skills of a sportsperson, which would make the difference at competitions.

When the current champions of the country in this field were using weapons that were a couple of years old, what would be the fate of the common competitor, especially in the forces, who had to make do with whatever was available to him, he wondered.

He however, said that one bright spot was that there had been no instances of doping in the competitions.

Self-precautionary measures suggested
Tribune News Service

PANCHKULA, April 27 — With cases of robbery, burglary and cheating on the rise, the local residents have demanded stern steps to keep criminals at bay. The need of police-public cooperation is also being stressed once again.

In a random survey done by The Tribune some residents sought better policing while others suggested self-precautionary measures to discourage anti-social elements. A section of the residents felt that better public cooperation was needed in this direction.

Mr K.N.Gulati, a resident of Sector 10, says there have been cases in which the robbers have entered houses by posing as representatives of some company. In most of the cases the criminals chose a house where a woman occupant is alone during the day-time, he adds.

Mr Gulati, who is President of the House Owners Welfare Association of Sector 10, is not happy with the public cooperation. His attempts to persuade the residents to provide information about their domestic servants and watchmen did not yield much results. He demands better vigil by the beat constables.

A businessman of Sector 15, Mr Mukesh Malhotra, says that even after the incidents of robberies in the recent past intensive patrolling by the police was nowhere to be seen. A verification drive of the domestic servants and workers engaged in the construction of houses launched by the police had not been seriously followed up He seeks issuing of verification cards to the chowkidars engaged in different sector markets.

While expressing his doubt over the investigations carried out by the police in any specific case, he says burglaries continue to take place in spite of police claims of having arrested different gangs of burglars Mr Shakti Chand, a senior citizen of Sector 16, says a humane approach in the cops, especially those posted at police stations and police posts, was missing. He feels that the cases of burglars tricking their way into houses could be checked if the residents were more alert.

He says that if the cops posted with the traffic police wing were more vigilant, the suspicious movement of the criminals could easily be sensed by the

Mr M.L.Sharma, a resident of Sector 2, says the police should make a serious effort to screen all labourers coming from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. A new trend in the nature of burglaries and robberies — in which the criminals pose as representatives of some company — was emerging in the town.

Number 13 does not favour Vajpayee
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, April 27 — Numerologically 13, which is a combination of 4, has not favoured Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee. His government lasted 13 days when he took oath on May 16, 1996, and remained in office for 13 months when he became Prime Minister on March 19, 1998 , with the help of 13 parties, according to Mr Madan Gupta Spatu, who has 35 years of experience in astrology and numerology.

The month this year was also the fourth (April), when the government lost on 17th (number 8) and the day too was Saturday, which was again represented by 8 in numerology. And it was the fourth Lok Sabha to be dissolved since 1970.

Similarly, he had to recommend dissolution of the Lok Sabha on April 26, number 8 again. If you add 26.4.1999, it comes to 2+6+4+1+9+9+9=40=4, and 17-4-1999 also gives the number 4.

Not only this, he was jailed in 1975 (1+9+7+5=22=4), when he was 49 (4+9=13=4). In 1984, (1+9+8+4=22=4) when he was 58(4), he lost the election.

Tailoring school in village temple
By Varinder Singh
Tribune News Service

DADDU MAJRA, April 27 — Once the bells of the temple cease to chime, a soft clank of sewing machines start dominating the air during morning hours at Baba Balak Nath temple here, which not only houses idols of Gods, but also a tailoring school, aimed at making poor, needy and uneducated village women self-reliant.

As soon as the morning prayers are over, about 20 women, mostly girls in their early twenties, are at work, learning tailoring and stitching in the prayer hall of the temple, which also serves as a classroom for these girls,most of whom belong to poor families of the village and nearby slum areas.

The entire exercise, which last for over two hours a day, during which the women learn the fine intricacies of the art of dress-making under the supervision of a female instructor, who along with other officials of the Mahila Parishad Chandigarh, which is the force behind the centre, also help them in getting work after completion of the course.

"About 30 to 40 women, some of them widows, have already been settled in life and are earning after completing the course from the centre, which has been functioning in the temple for a period of over two years," said Dr Promilla Kakkar, President of the Mahila Parishad, Chandigarh, a social organisation. She said the objective of the centre was to make the women from the village and nearby slums, who otherwise, could contribute little towards their families for want of education and resources, stand on their feet.

"We have been successful in achieving our goal to a large extent, as a number of women are presently employed with different boutiques in Chandigarh and surrounding areas and some have even set up their own ventures after being trained by the centre," she said. According to Dr Kakkar the centre had been set up in the temple as no one in the village came forward to offer his space for establishment of the centre, in spite of repeated requests by the parishad.

Ms Kavita, a student, said though she was yet to complete the course it was proving a boon to her as now she was not only able to stitch the clothes of her entire family, but orders for stitching of clothes from within the village and outside had started pouring in, due to which she was earning well.

She said before she was inspired by Ms Usha, the instructor, to join the course, she was doing nothing but normal household chores, which were of little help to meet both ends for a family of six.

Similarly, Ms Sunita, another student, said after doing her matriculation she had little hope to get any worthwhile job. But these days she was brimming with confidence that she would end up as a financially self-reliant person after completing her course at the centre. She said, besides the proximity of the centre to her house, what had proved to be the main attraction for her was the monthly fee, which was just Rs 30. "I would not have been able to pay about Rs 150 per month being charged by some private schools in the village. Moreover, they do not charge anything from us for material being used during training such as needles and clothes."

According to Ms Prabhu Jyoti, an office-bearer of the parishad, one- third of the total fee collected from the students, was being given to the Temple Management Committee, who had provided them with space to run the centre. "The rest of the amount is spent on maintenance of sewing machines and on the material being provided to the students," she said.

During the expansion programme, which is on the cards, the parishad was planning to start a course in embroidery for women. "In addition to this, we are going make arrangements for monthly talks for students, during which experts from different fields will deliver lectures on varied subjects such as health, nutrition and common social problems," said Dr Kakkar.

To attract more aspirants from nearby villages and slums, the parishad is toying with the idea of providing certificates to the trainees on completion of the one-year course.

Power cuts bane of Panchkula
Water supply too hit
Tribune News Service

PANCHKULA, April 27 — Be it summer or winter, it is the same story when it comes to power supply in the town. Unscheduled power cuts and low voltage have become a bane for the residents.

This summer also, the consumer is feeling the pinch of heat as unscheduled power cuts are being imposed by the Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam (HVPN) during the peak load hours.

Failure to augment the power infrastructure in the face of the increased power load of the town is the main reason behind the problem, say nigam sources.

The problem of power cuts has compounded during the past few days as the continued dry spell has pushed the demand of electricity to around seven lakh units per day.

Mr M.L.Malhotra, a resident of Sector 16, complained that he had to spend sleepless night due to unannounced power cuts.

Similar views were expressed by Mr D.P.Gautam of Sector 21 here. He lamented that each day there were at least three power cuts of varying durations.

The sources say that unscheduled power cuts were due to overloading of the 66-kv Pinjore-Panchkula high transmission line. The 15-km line urgently needs augmentation as it was being used to almost its peak designed capacity. A parallel 66-kv line has been approved but its installation is expected to take time, say the sources.

Officials of the HVPN say that the power situation is likely to improve from May 15 after supply from the Kunihar hydroelectric project in Himachal Pradesh is restored. At present, the town's power demand is being met by the Ropar thermal grid.

The water supply of the town is also being badly affected due to the unannounced power cuts as it is dependent on the power supply.

Only on Sunday, several sectors remained without water, forcing the residents to make alternative arrangements. A sudden failure at the 66-kv substation in Sector 1 was reported to be the reason behind it.

The Public Health wing of HUDA has taken up the matter with the HVPN. The Superintending Engineer of HUDA, Mr S.K.Khanna, says that unannounced power cuts during the morning and evening hours affected the water supply. The HVPN officials have been requested to inform in advance about a power cut so that some alternative arrangement can be made, he adds.