The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Chandigarh Stories

HEALTH

Brave warriors of cancer tell their tale
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Feb 13 — Cancer is no longer the end of the road for it is curable. The deadly disease can be overcome with the help of advanced medical care, early diagnosis and the will to never give up. This message was repeated by a host of speakers on the occasion of Cancer Survivors Day, which was celebrated by the Sahayta Cancer Sahyog at Tagore Theatre last evening.

The day is celebrated annually to salute the brave warriors of this disease as survival for them is a celebration of life. The Sahayta Charitable Welfare Trust awarded three Jiwan Shakti awards to those who fought the disease successfully and are all set to view the world with a new perspective. They are Joginder Singh, who made his mother Shanti receive the award on his behalf; Divyajot and Rijul Bakshi. The award which carries a cash prize of Rs 5,000 was shared by them this year.

Sharing her story with the audience, Divyajot Kaur said that she was 17 years old when the disease was detected (1989) but she did not let the disease hamper her studies and other activities. She got cured after chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment at PGI in 1994. She is now married and has a seven-month-old child. She is working as a teacher in Mandi Gobindgarh. Her message for the cancer patients is "Cancer is curable. Have faith in yourself, your doctors and God Almighty. And follow the instructions properly.''

Joginder is all praise for the Sahayta Cancer Sahyog as but for the financial and moral support from it, he may not have been where he is today. His disease was detected at a time when he had no money and his parents thought that they would not be able to save his life. Joginder was suffering from acute leukemia and there was only a 30 per cent chance of recovery. But with the help of his mother and efforts of Sahayta volunteers, he fought the disease with remarkable courage. To express his gratitude, he now plans to appear for his plus two examinations and then work for the cause of Sahayta so that more people like him can be helped.

The third recipient, six-and-a-half year old Rijul Bakshi lost his eyesight in the course of treatment, but he is on his way to recovery. He is off treatment for the past two and a half years.

Another survivor, Ameena also shared her tale of woes, more so as her case got complicated with her developing jaundice during treatment. "It has indeed been a miracle. Thanks to the advancements in medical science and the consistent efforts of the doctors in PGI, I have got a new lease of life, especially when I had lost all hope," she said. Sahayta came to her help at a time when she lost her husband and later her brother also. They provided her the much-needed financial and moral support to complete the treatment. Even the Red Cross had helped her with some funds.

Neena Gill, another survivor who is now a Sahayta volunteer, emphasised that a positive attitude, faith in doctors and will power to fight the disease is extremely helpful in getting cured. It is equally important to talk to fellow patients about the disease so as to help them come to terms with it at the earliest.

A token cash award was given by Mrs Suri to Ali Mohammed, a cancer survivor, to enable him to educate his children. The Protsahan Colonel Iqbal Award was given by Mrs Loomba to Pramod.

The Sahayta Sagan Toor awards instituted in the memory of Gagan Toor were given to Suman and Sumeet Singh, both of them are cancer survivors.

Presiding over the function, Prof I.C Pathak, former PGI Director, emphasised that cancer is curable and preventable if detected at an early stage. He talked about the incidence of cancer in the world and the country, the symptoms and the treatment modalities. Global figures reveal that nearly 10 million people suffer from cancer every year and this number would double in the next 20 years. Lauding the role of voluntary agencies like Sahayta in helping such patients, he said that determination and persistence can help a patient. He also appealed to individuals and organisations to help the cancer society, both in terms of volunteers and financial help. Dr Pathak also highlighted the advanced facilities available at the Department of Radiotherapy, PGI, for chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

The President of the society, Mrs Neelu Tuli, while reading out the annual report, talked about the holistic support provided to the patients by the Sahayta volunteers visiting PGIMER. She revealed that the society has so far provided treatment to 69 patients by spending Rs 7,66,700.

Dr S.C Sharma. Head of the Radiotherapy Department, spoke about the role of social organisations. He pointed out that incidence of cancer is on the increase due to environmental pollution, life-style and greater life expectancy.

Earlier, artistes from the Song and Drama Division added colour and cheer to the function by their scintillating performances in various group dances. However, the highlight were the performances of cancer survivor Megha Narang, who danced on the number Yeh galiyan yeh chaubhara and little Rijul Bakshi, who sang a song on the casio. Both of them drew loud applause.

SPORT

Sport is dad's play
By Arvind Katyal

CHANDIGARH, Feb 13 — Are sportsmen fathers good at moulding their children to become champions? The performances of Yuveraj Singh and Reetinder Sodhi at the World Youth Cup in Colombo amply prove it. Such examples are many but those children who receive the support of their mothers as well are indeed fortunate.

Yuveraj is the son of Yograj Singh, a former test cricketer who coaches youngsters at the Sector 16 Cricket Stadium. Reetinder belongs to Patiala, whose father, Maheshinder Singh, popularly known as Kipu, had played for Punjab in Ranji Trophy. His googly used to be a scare for many outstanding batsmen in those days. Now, he trains budding cricketers in an academy at Patiala.

Rohan Gavaskar, son of Sunil Gavaskar, plays for Bengal and is shaping up well. Bhagwant Singh Sidhu, father of Navjot Singh Sidhu, was a keen cricket player and a former President of the Patiala District Cricket Association who wanted to see his son play for India. He gave a new lease of life to cricket activities at Maharani Cricket Ground in Patiala.

However, most former champions left the choice of the sport to their children. 'Flying Sikh' Milkha Singh, has seen his son, Chiranjeev Milkha Singh, choose golf as career. Chiranjeev's mother, Nirmal Milkha Singh, has been a former international volleyball player. She was also the Joint Director Sports of the UT Administration. The couple once said what they could not earn in their lifetime, their son had earned by winning one golf circuit. Maybe Chiranjeev did not want to sweat out on the track like his father, given a limited prize-money in athletics.

Nandu Natekar, a former national badminton champion who belongs to Maharashtra, saw his son Gaurav Natekar do well in national-level lawn tennis meets.

Manavjit Singh, a Commonwealth Games silver medallist in trap event and an Olympic gold medal hope of the country, belongs to the Ferozepur district of Punjab. He is the son of another prominent shooter of Punjab, Gurbir Singh, who is also the President of the Punjab Shooting Association. Another shooter, Sabeeha Dhillon of Chandigarh, who created a new national record in the air-rifle 10-m event and became a national junior champion at Phillaur past November, is being trained by her father, Iqbal Singh Dhillon, a former shooter of repute.

S. Pitamber Singh, a former chief national badminton coach at the National Institute of Sports in Patiala, and a player of yesteryears, has two sons Vijaydeep Singh and Navdeep Singh who are doing well in this game. His daughter Seema is a good gymnast. Vijaydeep is representing India at the Thomas Cup tie in New Delhi.

Vinod Vatrana, a former International badminton player of Patiala, saw her daughter Vidhu become the Punjab state doubles champion. Vinod's father had also represented the country in 1976 as a doubles specialist. Vidhu's mother, Gurinder Ginni, is also a former national badminton player.

Chaman Lal, a badminton coach at Jalandhar has groomed his son, Sachin Ratti, to become a good international badminton player. Sachin is now among the top six players of the country. Sachin has been a national junior champion also. Meeta Bhandari, a state badminton champion, is the daughter of a former player, P.K. Bhandari, who is now a senior SAI coach at the NIS, Patiala.

Nadia Saini, a ten-year-old city table tennis sensation, is the daughter of Narinder Saini, a former table tennis player of repute. She recently surprised all by winning the cadet, sub-junior and junior titles at the UT State Table Tennis Championship. She also qualified for the main draw in the Junior National Table Tennis Meet held at Chandigarh past November. Kamlesh and Monalisa Mehta, husband-wife Arjuna-awardee duo, who were in Chandigarh during the Junior National Table Tennis Meet past year, said they would like to see their seven-year-old son and three-year-old daughter become international players of repute.

With these sportspersons-parents around, the future of Indian sport looks bright.

Tushar wins tennis tourney
By Our Sports Reporter

CHANDIGARH, Feb 13 — Tushar Liberhan of St John's High School, Sector 26, won the South East Asia Tennis Championship of International Tennis Federation, which concluded in Islamabad on February 12. He beat Tousef Chima of Pakistan in the final 6-1, 2-6, 6-3.

Tushar was selected in the boys team for the Asia Cup. On February 6, he won the first leg of the tournament by beating Gafoor of Uzbekistan 6-2, 6-0. Fourteen countries took part in these tournaments.

Tushar has been invited for trials, to be held from February 28 to March 4, for the World Junior Tennis Competition, to be held in Indonesia. He is a trainee at the Chandigarh Lawn Tennis Association.

Boxing meet: Paramjeet of Government High School, Maloya, and Ashwani of SD Public School, Sector 2, won their respective bouts on the opening day of the Chandigarh State Sub-Junior Boxing Championship at Boxing Coaching Centre, Sector 23. The two-day meet is being organised by the Chandigarh Amateur Boxing Association.

Results — Dharminder (GMSSS-23) b Shamsher (Sharda Sarvhitkari-40) RSC OC 1st round; Ashwani (SDPS-32) b Vipin Kumar (SD Club-32) RSC OC 2nd round; Lovish (Sharda Sarvihitkari-40) b Rajeev (SD Club-32) WP; Shalinder (Boxing Coaching Centre-46) b Deepak (GMS-29) WP; Naresh (Shishu Niketan-22) b Anil (GHS-20); Bhuvan (Sharda-40) b Nikhil (GMSSS-27) RSC OC 1st round; Paramjeet (GHS-Maloya) b Sumit Kumar (BCC-46) WP; Mukesh (GMHS-38) b Vishal (Sharda-40) WP; Jaspal (GHS-40) b Raj Kumar (GMHS-30) RSC OC IInd round; Paramjeet (GMSSS-23) b Vineet (Sharda-40) RSC 3rd round.

OIC win: Oriental Insurance Company Limited beat Life Insurance Corporation of India XI by 9 wickets in the final of Inter-Financial/Bank Employees Cricket Tournament at DAV College, Sector 10. Mr Jaswinder Pal Singh, Secretary, LIC Sports Recreation Club, gave away the prizes. Amarjit Kumar (LIC) was declared man of the series, Anil Arya (LIC) best bowler, Deepinder Chhabra (LIC) best wicket-keeper and Pawan Durani (OIC) man of the match.

Brief scores — LIC XI: 96 all out (S.M.S. Chauhan 22, Anil Kumar 18 n.o., Pawan 3 for 26); OIC 97 for 1 (Sandeep Mahajan 29 n.o., Balkishan 23 n.o., Vipin Sharma 26).

READERS WRITE

A project bound to fail

Once again the Punjab Government has embarked on an ambitious project, which, based on past records, is bound to fail. It will end up as another slum like Mohali. It will contribute to a massive urban sprawl that will inevitably contribute to air pollution, traffic and filth. Over the years, Chandigarh has become distinctly filthy. It is the “City Beautiful no more”. It has declined in quality appreciably ever since the towns of Mohali and Panchkula were allowed to expand unchecked during the past decade. Unchecked growth is now going on beyond sector 1. Anandgarh will be no different.Where is the money? Why does not the government repair roads, fix other cities in the state so that these are livable, control hazardous groundwater and air pollution, improve health care and public health? One island of pollution-free city is meaningless when the state is mired in massive pollution problems.

The whose idea is silly, conceived by some urban planners and politicians. For a bankrupt state to waste so much money on such outlandish projects is inexcusable. It is time the incompetent and untrustworthy Badal was fired, and replaced by someone of calibre and honesty.

Rajinder Singh
Amherst, MA, USA
Received via e-mail

Mastic concrete

This is with reference to the news item under the heading ‘Master concrete for intersections’, published in Chandigarh Tribune on February 1. Kindly permit me to point out that the correct name of the material is “Mastic concrete”. Since it is bitumen-based, it is generally known as ‘Bitumen mastic’. As it has the properties of great strength and durability, it is also referred to as concrete.

Mastic concrete is an intimate homogeneous mixture of selected well-graded aggregates in such proportions as to yield a plastic and voidless mass. Normally, bituminous surfaces have a bitumen content of 4 to 6 per cent, but mastic concrete has a bitumen content as high as 14 to 17 per cent. The mastic can be easily trowelled and floated to form a very dense and impermeable surface. To prevent skidding, it is covered with stone aggregates which can be embedded by hand or rolled into the mastic layer.

It is a versatile material for use on pavements carrying heavy traffic, at intersections involving frequent stopping and starting manoeuvres, and bridge decks. It has become quite popular in metropolitan areas like Delhi and elsewhere. It is a happy sign that Chandigarh is beginning to use this technique and that your paper has taken the initiative to highlight it.

M.K. Agarwal
Engineer-in-Chief (retd)
Haryana PWD (B&R)
Ex-President, Indian Roads Congress
Panchkula

ADMINISTRATION

Decks for MH automation cleared
By Vijay Mohan
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Feb 13 — With decks being cleared for the automation of Western Command Hospital, Chandi Mandir, it will be the first military hospital in the country to computerise its functioning and administration.

Sources said that computers are in the process of being installed and the project is expected to complete in about a month's time.

The project entails the installation of over 50 computers in the hospital and is expected to cost about Rs 60 lakh. ''All computers will be interlinked through a Local Area Network,'' a source said. The Command Hospital network, in turn, will be linked with INS Ashwini, the Indian Navy hospital located in Mumbai, and the Army Research and Referral Hospital (RRH)n in New Delhi,'' he added.

While the automation of INS Ashwini is complete, that of the RRH is in the process.

With automation at the hospital here, all administration work, inventory management, personnel activities and patient diagnosis will be online. Further, a medical data bank will be maintained along with records of all cases coming to the hospital.

Automation, along with Internet accessibility, would also enable Command Hospital to exchange medical data or advise with renowned civilian medical institutes via e-mail.

Automation will also be a step further towards the Army's tele-medicine project. Tele-medicine envisions revolutionising the medical care system to provide ''real time'' specialist advice to Field Medical Units (FMU) by establishing a communication and data transfer system between FMUs and major hospitals for combat casualty care and provide the best possible care to injured troopers in forward and remote areas, where specialist care may not be available.

Sources say that the project awaits the final clearance of the Defence Minister. The tele-medicine project was being undertaken by the Department of Electronics, but it was later transferred to the ministry of Defence. The estimated cost of the project is about Rs 15 crore.

Under the first stage of the 3-phase project, the field hospital at Tangahar, 92 Base Hospital, 153 General Hospital and 150 General Hospital, all situated in the Northern Sector, are being interlinked with Western Command Hospital, chandi Mandir. This, in turn, is being linked with the Army Research and Referral Hospital.

Larger hospitals always have speciality and super-speciality expertise available round the clock, while specialists cannot normally be expected to be posted in remote field units. Tele-medicine, hence, would enable doctors at FMUs to confer and seek expert advice through data links instantaneously, whenever required.

Real time specialist medical treatment in forward areas has assumed significance with increased deployment on the LoC stretch along the Drass-Kargil axis and the sector remaining militarily active. Besides, casualties also flow in regularly from the adjacent battlefield of Siachen. Artillery shelling and inclement weather are major causes of casualties in that area, while evacuation is difficult and a long drawn process.

English drives drivers mad
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Feb 13 — Candidates appearing for the written test for the recruitment of drivers by the Chandigarh Transport Undertaking, yesterday, expressed resentment on the issue that the question paper was set only in English.

Talking to The Tribune, a candidate said he and all others had no prior information that the paper would only be in English. "Even the question papers in the tests for senior posts gave a candidate the option of the medium of answering. A large number of drivers were handicapped in the use of English, even among those who were serving now," a candidate said. The question papers were photostat copies of hand written text.

Candidates said that instead of the listed subject, the test included general knowledge questions also. One of the complainants showed preparatory books purchased for the examination which had detailed material on road rules.

A large section of the complainants included drivers who were recruited on part-time basis in December 1998.

Authorities concerned admitted that the question paper was set only in English. They said the questions largely revolved around the given areas, except for a few which were on general knowledge.

However, an official accepted that candidates had not been informed about the medium of question papers. He said the questions were very simple. Protest dharnas are being organised in this context.