SPORT

New surface for CLTA courts
By Our Sports Reporter

CHANDIGARH, March 11 — Sport all over the world has been subjected to changes from time to time, whether equipment or playing surface. At the Asiad held at Delhi in 1982, astroturf was much in use and it was laid at many centres in India for hockey. Those managing these centres were not aware of how to maintain these. These often got mutilated. Other games like athletics and tennis tried the use of synthetic surface and succeeded.

At many places, wooden surface was costly, resulting in increased costs, which induced organisers to think of new innovative ideas. Badminton got hova courts.

Tennis is popular in the city, with almost every school trying to make these courts.

The Chandigarh Lawn Tennis Association has many facilities, both clay and synthetic.

Finishing touches are being given to new synthetic surfaces on centre courts at the Sector 10 centre. Davis Cup matches and other ITF tournaments were played on these in the 1990s.

When this reporter visited the centre, two professionals — Sanjay Minotra and Raman Kaul — were doing the laying work themselves.

The two courts are being laid manually at a cost of nearly Rs 7 lakh.

The CLTA had asked for medium-type of cushioning, with playing portion to be leaf-green in colour and outside portion bottle-green.

Mr Rajan Kashyap, Chairman of the CLTA, said Shivalik Public School, SAS Nagar, and Chandigarh Club will also have one court each of this kind. Decoturf has monopoly in India, with nearly 90 surfaces.

The second competitor has been an Australian company, though with less work done in India.

Mr Kashyap said with this new surface coming up at centre courts having seating capacity of nearly 8,000, the next ITF tournament and other international tournaments could be held here.

The CLTA players would also benefit, he added.

GMCH athletics meet opens
By Our Sports Reporter

CHANDIGARH, March 11 — The two-day annual athletics meet of Governement Medical College, Sector 32, began here today. It was inaugurated by Prof V.K. Kak, Director-Principal of the college and Secretary of Medical Education and Research, UT.

The following are the results: 100 m race (boys) — Geetinder Goyal 1, Harkirat Singh 2, Gurbakshish Singh 3; shot put (girls) — Chetna 1, Minal 2, Tina 3; discus throw (boys) — Ashish 1, Hemant 2, Basant 3; 400 m (girls) — Pooja Saxena 1, Tina Kochhar 2,Varinder 3; long jump (girls) — Tina 1, Varinder 2, Mili 3; javelin throw (boys) — Hemant 1, Parampreet 2, Jatinder Pal Singh 3; shot put (staff) — Satish Kaushik 1, Raj Kumar 2, Prem Jindal 3; discus throw (faculty-male) — C.S. Gautam 1, Sri Kant 2, A.S. Bawa 3; discus throw (faculty-female) — Jaswinder 1, Binani 2, Monica 3; 200 m (faculty) — Arjun Dass 1, Rajiv Sharma 2, Raman Abrol 3. The 1998 batch won the first prize in marchpast.

Ball badminton teams: Sanjay Tiwari of ITI, Sector 28, and Monika Panjla of Dev Samaj College for Women, Sector 45, will lead UT boys and girls sections, respectively, in the 45th junior national ball badminton championship, to be held at Jaipur from March 12 to 16, according to Mr Baljinder Singh Banwait, Secretary of Chandigarh Ball Badminton Association. The teams are: boys — Sanjay Tiwari, Amit Chaudhary, Lakhbir Singh, Vikrant Singh, Vishal Singh and Bisheshwar Biswal; girls — Monika Panjla, Sonika, Monika, Sunita, Shivani Ojha, Poonam, Gurjit Kaur and Jagdeep Kaur.

Sports wing of school inaugurated
From Our Correspondent

PANCHKULA, March 11 — A multi-speciality sports wing in Nav Bal Nikatan Public School, Sector 12-A, here, was inaugurated today by Mr R. S. Verma, Chief Secretary, Haryana.

Mr Verma said that sports activities were on the decline among students. ''Sports contribute immensely to the surfacing of latent talent in children,'' he observed.

A cultural programme held on the occasion began with a welcome song presented by tiny tots, followed by an 'action song' highlighting India's unity in diversity, especially at an hour of crisis. Shivani, a Class VI student, spoke on the importance of sports.

The Principal, Ms Poonam Mahajan, said that the 4000 sq feet sports wing would provide facilities for roller skating, aerobics, yoga and taekwando to the students. The school would make it mandatory for all students to participate in at least one sports activity , she said.

SEMINARS

Jacob’s call to preserve environment
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, March 11 — The Governor of Punjab-cum-Administrator of Chandigarh, Lieut-Gen JFR Jacob (retd), today gave a call for launching a movement to preserve the environment.

Speaking at the “Millennium Conclave” organised by the Environment and Heritage Society at the Sector 16 Punjab Kala Bhavan, General Jacob said that fragile balance between nature and human development is being disturbed due to deforestation, unplanned industrial activities and polluting industries.

In Punjab, he said, the economy was dependent upon agriculture but rivers were getting polluted. The flow of water in these lifelines has to be maintained. He expressed concern that the historic ‘black-bain’ near Kapurthala where Guru Nanak had taken bath once.

Talking about Chandigarh, General Jacob said he came to the city envisioning a garden city, a City Beautiful, but Chandigarh has become a victim of population explosion due to large scale influx of migrant population. Out of a total population of nine lakh, there were three lakh slum dwellers living in unorganised colonies putting a stain on the civic amenities in the city.

Expressing concern over the shrinking forest cover over Shivaliks, Sukhna Lake was getting choked with silt. He said that he was planning a botanical garden near Mullanpur, which would be spread over an area of 180 acres having research facilities.

Expressing his concern over lack of exposure to younger generation towards rich cultural heritage, the Governor said that one of the finest artifacts of Harappan, Kushan and Gupta’s period were in Sanghol museum by opening its show window at Chandigarh Museum.

General Jacob said that he was also planning a Sikh section at Chandigarh Museum.

Earlier, the President of the society, Mr G.S. Shergill, welcomed the guests and talked about the conclave and its significance. The Punjab Finance Minister, Capt Kanwaljit Singh, was among those who attended the conclave.

Special awards were instituted to commemorate the memory of Dr Bhai Vir Singh, Dr Mohinder Singh Randhawa, Bhagat Puran Singh, Shiv Kumar Batalvi and Sardar Sobha Singh.

Problems of vernacular press highlighted
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, March 11 — Press in regional languages continued to grow in a big way because people better identified their problems in their own context and own language, said Prof H.S.Dilgir, a leading light in mass communication education, here today.

Prof Dilgir was delivering the keynote address at a seminar on ‘Role of language press in public relations,’ organised by the local chapter of the Public Relation Society of India at the Press Club.

The vernacular press faced problems in the beginning . Even the administrative wing of the government concentrated on giving more information to the English press.The actual role and expectations of the public relations wing stayed on the back-burner since Independence and the role was largely that of a fire- alarm, Prof Dilgir said.

Earlier, the regional press relied largely on translation of English news copies. The translations could not carry the natural spirit of the events, he added.

Mr Radhey Shyam, a former editor of Dainik Tribune, said the content of the Hindi press had changed tremendously. Earlier there were mere four pages with minimal concentration on sports. The success stories of regional dailies in Calcutta, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh showed how the scenario had changed. The PR role needed a relook; he added.

Prof N.S. Johal, from the Mass Communication and Journalism Department, Punjabi University, said quite contrary to the national scenario, with increase in Hindi press, there was an increase in the number of aspirants in English journalism as compared to local languages.

In 1966, there was circulation of only 49,000 papers in Punjabi. This showed a circulation of five Punjabi papers against 1000 English papers. Between 1981 and 1991, the number rose to 31, he said.

Prof Johal said the electronic media had also created a greater newspaper interest as people were anxious to read details of the event they watched on television.

Seminar on social transformation
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, March 11 —Globalisation in the context of information technology revolution during current times underlined a definite impact on sociology, remarked Prof Partha Mukerjee, in his address at a seminar by the Sociology Department in Panjab University here today.

Prof Mukerjee was speaking at the closing ceremony of the three-day seminar on ‘Social transformation of Indian society; post-independence era’ at ICSSR Complex.

Another major aspect was the coupling of information technology with the free economic system. Prof Mukherjee discussed the status of sociology in the context of indigenisation, globalisation and liberalisation.

He also traced the emergence of ‘modernist paradigm’ and ended on an optimistic note.

A panel discussion was held on implications of globalisation on sociological transformation. Three panelists in the session were Prof H.S. Mehta, Prof Satish Deshpande and Prof Amitabh Kundu.

Dr Deshpande brought out the need for practitioners of cultural sciences to guard against the complacencies of globalisation.

Prof Amitabh Kundu, an economist, laid emphasis on empirical situation regarding the inequality across and within different states of India.He pointed out the rising disparity between Class I and smaller towns in terms of basic services and infrastructural facilities.

Prof Mehta discussed the implications of globalisation in Indian society, specially poor and deprived sections.The path followed by the policy-makers was ‘illusionary’ rather visionary.

Dr Kiranpreet Kaur, Director of the seminar, presented a report of the seminar and highlighted the main issues.