HEALTH

A health hazard for tiny tots
From Monica Sharma

CHANDIGARH June 27 — A mere mention of chocolate, ice-creams, cakes, cold drinks or jellys is enough to send the kids in a spin and still have them craving for more — such is the trend among these youngsters. This high-calorie diet is a potential health hazard for the tiny tots who are unaware of the consequences.

Pizzas are the hottest item with the new generation. The concept of fast food for lunch and dinner has caught up with the kids and is burning holes in the pockets of the parents. Pleas of nutritious food fall on deaf ears and mothers fail in their mission.

Generally the mothers complain that the kids don’t feel hungry. Indu, mother of a five-year-old son, says. “‘The whole day I am after my son that he should have nutritious diet. But he rarely feels hungry. Loss of appetite is quite common in the kids nowadays.’’

Kids have their own angle to this fast-food story. “We do feel hungry but our parents pressurise us so much to eat something or the other that we get fed up of eating the whole day.If our parents set us free to eat whatever we wish, then surely the hunger will be felt by us,’’ Chandan, a seven-year-old, says..

Arun, father of a seven-year-old daughter, says: “My daughter is so stubborn that everyday until and unless she gets a chocolate she won’t have her proper meals. From the very childhood she is fond of chocolates and sweets and we fear that she will have some cavities in her teeth.’’

Dr Anil Malhotra,child specialist, warns the parents to keep away their wards from trash food. The children should be given a balanced diet of household items. He says that the parents should adopt a constant behaviour towards their children. They should not surrender to the undue demands of the kids. Eating junk food affects the stable growth to a great extent. Eating chocolates and ice-creams spoils the teeth and they get cavity-prone very early.

The parents also feel worried about the eating habits of their kids. To some extent the parents are also responsible for the eating habits of the kids. From the beginning even when children have no teeth, parents start giving them little bit of chocolates, ice-creams and other fast food items. The children develop the taste for the exotic eating items from the very beginning.

Rahul and Supriya two tiny tots say, “The only thing we can eat any time of the day is our favourite ‘Maggi noodles’. Our appetite rises as we have a look Maggi anywhere. When we come back from school mummy refreshes us with delicious Maggi.’’ But where are the junk foods taking our kids? Doctors say that the habit of eating fruits,green vegetables and lots of milk should be inculcated in kids from the very start. With eating so much of sweet items, the teeth get spoiled at a very tender age.

Health education drive launched
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH June 27 — The Malaria Wing today launched an extensive health education drive in Dadu Majra colony with a view to propagate the theme of “Malaria control everyone’s concern’’, as part of the observance of June as anti-malaria month.

Dr Alka Kothari, a representative of the Union of India and member task force, inaugurated the campaign. In her inaugural remarks, she called upon residents to take preventive steps to control malaria, particularly during the monsoon season. Arrangements were made for examining the blood slides of fever cases on the spot.

Mr K.L Sharma, councillor, Municipal Corporation, also appealed to the residents to get the insecticide sprayed in their houses. Teams were pressed into service for health education campaign, house-to-house survey and treating mosquito breeding places.

Gate meeting by public health staff
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH June 27 — Members of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation Public Health Workers Union today organised a gate meeting outside Sector 26, CMC, Public Health Office, in support of their long-pending demands and to mobilise the workers to make the forthcoming rally of July 6 a success.

Addressing the workers, the union leaders condemned the Chandigarh Administration as well as the MC authority for not accepting their genuine demands. The general secretary, Mr Rajinder Katoch appealed to the workers to participate in the rally, to be held at the Chandigarh Housing Board on July 6.

Some of their demands include that all transferred employees from Administration to the corporation be treated on deputation with Municipal Corporation, technician’s scale to all categories; filling of vacant posts, immediate release of bonus, regularisation of all work-charged and daily wage employees and clearance of all dues before retirement.

60 vow to donate eyes
From Our Correspondent

DERA BASSI June 27 — As many as 60 persons filled forms to donate their eyes, after death, in a eye donation camp organised by the Bharat Vikas Parishad to celebrate the 80th birth anniversary of late Dr Suraj Prakash, founder of the parishad, here today.

In a statement, Mr Som Nath, Secretary, Punjab unit of the Bharat Vikas Parishad, said a number of senior citizen of the town and surrounding areas participated in the camp, which was presided by Mr K.L. Passi, National Convener.

Mr Avinash Kamal Jain, National Convener of the Sanskar project, was the main speaker.

SPORT

Smooth sailing for seeds
By Our Sports Reporter

CHANDIGARH June 27 — The second day of the PD Vashisht Memorial total tennis championships, being played here at Lake Club courts, sector 6, had smooth sailing for the seeds. Despite the morning showers, the enthusiasm among the participants was upbeat. Yuvraj Chaudhary the top seed, defeated Manjit Singh 6-0 in a one-sided match.

The other results are — boys under-16 first round: Rohan Bhandari b Navinder Pal Singh 6-1; Amandeep w/o Dhruv Goyal; Annie Mehta b Tanveer Singh 6 -4; Kanwar Preet Singh b Gurtej Pannu 6-2; Yuvraj Chaudhary b Uday Partap Sandhu 6-0; Sahil Thapa w/o Digvijay Sharma; Sanam K Singh b Randeep 6-0; Raghav Rai w/o Simranjeet; Amar Harpreet Singh b Harmohinderjot Singh 6-5(5); Aman Tyagi b Aman Chadha 6-1; Dilpreet Gill b Deepak Gaddi 6-4; Karan Patnaik b Angad Rekhi 6-0; boys under-14: second round-Yuvraj Chaudhary b Manjeet Singh 6-0; Uday P Sandhu b Andrew H Roy 6-0; Dilpreet Gill b Amrik Singh 6-0; Rajeev Garg b Varun Garg 6-4; Kulwinder b Sahib Singh 6-2; Navinder Pal Singh b Anshul Garg 6-5(2); Karan w/o Dhruv; Sanam K Singh b Tejeshwar Singh 6-0; Rohan Bhandari b Bakul Khera 6-4; Kinshuk Sharma b Randeep Gill 6-0; Harneet Singh b Sandeep Chaudhary 6-1.

Football trials

The first day of the trials for the Chandigarh Football Academy saw more than 50 aspirants in the age group of 9-10 years at the Sector 7 Sports Complex. The academy will be set up at Sector 42 Sports complex, according to Mr JPS Sidhu, Joint Director Sports, UT Administration.

He said earlier trials were held at Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, and Ambala and a few boys were shortlisted. Tomorrow, the shortlisted players will be asked, along with those earlier selected ,for the final trials to be held at Chandigarh from July 10 to 12 to choose the best 24 for the academy, which will be operational from this session. Mr Sidhu added that another preliminary trials round would be done at Mahilpur in Punjabi on July 4 to target the rural children.

Martial art sport demonstrated
By Our Sports Reporter

CHANDIGARH June 27 — Kurash, a martial art sport of Central Asia, has made inroads in India. World number one in above-100kg class, Koshtimor Mohammad of Uzbekistan, met around 50 city judo trainees at Sports Complex, Sector 42, here today. The sport, which has dictionary meaning wrestling, resembles judo. It originated about 1000 years back in Russia and its name in Turkish is ‘Yagnligeish’ and in Iran it is termed as ‘Kushti’.

Koshtimor was on a tour of Delhi, Amritsar, Jalandhar and Chandigarh as a representative of the International Kurash Association. Its President is Komil Yusupov. Koshtimo spoke in his native language, which was translated by an expert from Panjab University. He said the first World Kurash Championship was held in May 1999, where more than 30 countries took part.

Koshtimor added that they were hoping for the inclusion of this sport in the 2004 Olympics as they had more than 60 countries as members, which was the requisite number of qualifying in the Olympics.

The countries which have taken to this sport included Armenia, Russia, Hungary, Turkey, USA and Korea.

He said last year, international tournaments like Asian Kurash Championship, International Women Kurash Meet and European Kurash Championship, besides many national-level tournaments, were held.

Some days back the Indian body of Kurash was formed, with Mr Jagdish Tytler, a former Union Minister, its President. The Turkish Open Kurash Meet will be held in Turkey in July, where two Indians have been allowed to take part. They are Kirpal Singh and Pawan in above-100 and above-90 kg classes respectively.

The judo trainees today listened and tried to adapt the methods and techniques for kurash. Kirpal Singh of Jalandhar said he, being national wrestler, did not find any difficulty in taking to this new sport which was mainly to concentrate on legs and was easy for judokas to understand.

Kartar Singh of Jalandhar was elected the President of the Punjab Kurash Association. The visit of the Uzbekistan player to Chandigarh was arranged by the Amateur Judo Association of Chandigarh.

Six units a must for new event
By Our Sports Reporter

CHANDIGARH June 27 — The annual general meeting of the School Games Federation of India (SGFI) concluded last evening at Delhi, which finalised the tentative schedule of various editions of the 46th National School Games in different sport disciplines to be held in this session. According to Mr Ravinder Talwar, Vice-President of the SGFI, who attended the two-day meeting, disclosed that for new sport events, the House had decided to ask the respective national sport federations to conduct these in collaboration with the SGFI, but for every sport, a minimum of six affiliated units should participate. The SGFI had been under tremendous pressure from various sport bodies to include cycling, chess, and shooting, among others.

The other sport events allotted to units are: football-boys- under-14 Bihar, under-17-J&K & under-19 (West Bengal); kabaddi( national style)-under 19-Delhi, under-17-Madhya Pradesh & under-14-Bihar; kho kho (under-14, 17 and 19)-MP; athletics, table tennis and badminton-all age groups-Gujarat; wrestling and judo in all age groups- Delhi): cricket- CK Nayadu trophy- under-19-Delhi; under-16- Vinoo Mankad trophy-MP; volleyball-under-19-MP; under-17-Delhi; handball-under-19 and wide-17-MP; under-14-Navodaya Vidyalya) hockey-all age groups-Delhi; gymnastics -all age groups-West Bengal; lawn tennis-under-19, and under-17-Gujarat; ball badminton all age groups-AP.

ADMINISTRATION

HUDA offices to be under one roof
Tribune News Service

PANCHKULA June 27 — Still under construction, the new building on the premises of the Haryana Urban Development Authority in Sector 6, will bring the Office of the Chief Administrator (CA), the Administrator (Headquarters) and related staff under one roof within the next four months.

Being constructed at a cost of Rs 1.37 crore, this building has been connected to the already existing buildings of the Administrator’s Office and the Office of Administrator (HQ) on the premises of the complex. The purpose of the project is to bring the office of the CA, which is functioning from Chandigarh, to the complex.

Presently, the CA comes to the HUDA complex every Wednesday, holding meetings with the officials and attending to the public while on other days he functions from his office in Sector 18 in Chandigarh. His office within the complex would save inconvenience to the public and cut time lost in moving of files from one office to another considerably.

Initiated in 1998, the building plan includes a basement spread over 19000 sq ft with a parking space of 30 cars and 60 scooters. This has especially been made to meet the paucity of parking space which has two wheelers lined all along the road leading to the other end of the complex. In addition to the existing area for the parking, the open space on the three sides of the complex will also be developed for the purpose to accommodate 130 cars.

Moreover, the basement will also contain a record room for the many files which have been piled up in the room used as a store by the Enforcement Wing of HUDA for keeping impounded rehris and hoardings removed during regular drives. This will house the fire-fighting equipment and the generator room also.

The ground floor of the new building will have a conference hall with a seating capacity of 60 besides the reception. The hall will be used to hold official meetings which are presently conducted in a small hall in the Office of the Administrator (HQ). The first floor will have the Offices of the CA and Administrator (HQ) along with those of related staff.

Civic body electoral list released
Tribune News Service

SAS NAGAR June 27 — The draft electoral list of the SAS Nagar Municipal Council was today released by the Electoral Registration Officer (ERO), Mr Jaipal Singh, here today. As per the schedule, the revised voters’ list was scheduled to be released yesterday.

The objection to the draft notification will have to filed by July 4 and the final voters’ list would be released by July 17. The delay was due to shortage of enumeration staff engaged in making the voters’ list, said the ERO. The draft voters’ list has been prepared on the directives of the Punjab State Election Commissioner after it found that a number fake votes existed in the electoral rolls during the last exercise.

He said enumeration staff drawn from different departments had been deputed for the house to house listing on June 19 and June 20. To ensure the massive exercise of covering the 27 wards of the council, the ERO has drawn a large number of government employees. Depending upon the population of the ward concerned, the ERO had deputed between 10 and 30 employees in a ward. For supervision of the enumeration staff a supervisor of the rank of gazetted officer had also been put on duty in each ward.

Though no official statement regarding the exact number of voters in the new electoral rolls was available, an official said it would definitely be less than the total voters in the last voters’ list. In the evening when the ERO was listening to members of the public regarding the draft voters’ list, a number of former municipal councillors and representatives of residents’ welfare associations sought that copies of the draft voters’ list be made available to them. However, the ERO while citing the relevant clause in the Punjab State Election Commission Act expressed his inability to provide duplicate copies to them. He said that they could examine the draft voters’ list only in his office.

Mr Jaipal said for the convenience of the public at least 27 tables, one for each ward would be put in the parking shed in front of the SDM’s office from tomorrow. On each table a copy of the draft voters’ list of a ward would be available for scrutiny. Not satisfied with the reply of the ERO, the members led by Mr Arvinder Singh Bedi, Mr Amrik Singh Tehsildar, Mr Bhupinder Singh and Mr Gyan Chand Aggarwal went to the office of the Punjab State Election Commissioner and submitted a representation in this regard.