SPORT

Gungeet Bains upsets top seed
By Our Sports Reporter

CHANDIGARH, July 1 — Unseeded Gungeet Bains of Carmel Convent School, Sector 9 created a flutter when she upset top seed Sanjana Kapoor of Delhi to clinch the girls under-14 title in the PD Vashisht memorial total tennis tournament, which entered the penultimate day here today at the Lake Club courts, Sector 6.

Gungeet played valiantly to thwart the attempts of Sanjana in three thrilling sets, the scores being 6-7, (4-7), 6-4, 6-2. Earlier in semifinal, Gungeet defeated another seeded player Amanpreet Kaur in straight sets.

The boys under-14 final was also a keen affair with Yuvraj Chaudhary finally making it to win the title from spirited Harneet in straight sets from young Harneet Singh who was leading in the first set at 5-2 before succumbing at 5-7. The second set,was however, lost by Harneet.

The final of under-18 boys was held between CLTA trainee and top seed Ankit Raj and second seed Sahil Thapa and former justified his ranking by winning from Sahil at 6-0, 6-4.

In the interesting event of parent child, the duo of Ramesh Bhandari and his son Rohan Bhandari sailed into final by overpowering Amitabh Chandel and son Ayush Chandel at 8-4. They will meet the pair of Atul Gandhi and Viraj Gandhi tomorrow morning.

Results:

Finals: boys under 18: Ankit Raj b Sahil Thapa 6-0, 6-4; under 14:Yuvraj Chaudhary b Harneet Singh Ahluwalia 7-5, 6-0; girls under 14:Gungeet Bains b Sanjana Kapoor 6-7(4-7), 6-4, 6-2.

Semifinals: girls under 18:Amanpreet Kaur b Amarpreet Shallu 6-1, 6-3; Mallika Malhotra b Khushleen Kaur 6-0, 7-5; under 14: Sanjana Kapoor b Inayat Khosla 6-2, 6-7(4-7), 6-2; Gungeet Bains b Amanpreet Kaur 6-4, 6-4; boys under 18: doubles: Yuvraj Chaudhary & Sanam K Singh b Sahil Thapa & Rohan Bhandari 9-5; Harneet Singh & Ankit Raj b Bakul Khera & Annie Mehta 9-3; Parent & Child (QF); Ramesh Bhandari & Rohan Bhandari b LN Patnaik & Karan Patnaik 7-4; Atul Gandhi & Viraj b Rupinder Khosla & Inayat Khosla 7-4.

Badminton body meet

The annual general meeting of the Chandigarh Badminton Association will be held at Hotel Classic, Sector 35 on Sunday at 10.30 a.m. This was stated by Mr TPS Puri, Secretary of the association. The meeting assumes importance in view of the preparation for holding of forthcoming junior national badminton championship to be held in December this year and for the first time in city ever since the CBA got direct affiliation with the Badminton Association of India, said Mr Puri.

Elected

Mr Adesh Partap Singh Kairon, Excise and Taxation Minister, Punjab, was on Saturday unanimously elected president of the Punjab Amateur Rowing Association at its meeting held recently. The meeting was chaired by Mr K.S. Sahota senior vice president of the association.

Mr Prabjeev Singh, general secretary, said that the association would have separate boats shed for the storage of boats to be purchased for the national games. It was also decided to establish a rowing academy at Sukhna Lake.

Tribune Super Six Tournament

The final of the first Tribune Super Six Cricket Tournament was held here on Saturday. Bartana Kids elected to bat first after winning the toss. Bartana Kids scored just 33 runs in 6 overs, losing three wickets. In reply the Match Fixers Club achieved the target in just 3.1 overs without losing any wicket in which Pardeep scored 23 not out.

The final scores are Bartana Kids — 33 for 3 in 6 overs, Varun Razdan 24 and Nishant Jain 8 (Ajay 1 for 4 and Pardeep 1 for 5 and Naveen 1 for 13).

Match Fixers Club 35 for no loss. Pardeep 23 not out and Ajay 6 n.o. Sanjeev Banjwal got the man of the tournament, fielder of the tournament and bowler of the tournament award while Ajay of Match Fixers Club got the best batsman of the tournament award.

Good response to circle kabaddi
By Arvind Katyal

CHANDIGARH, July 1 — Prof J.P. Sharma’s name is synonymous with circle kabaddi. The man has been trying to make the game popular in the country since 1978. The founder secretary of the Amateur Circle Kabaddi Federation of India, Sharma was quite happy with the recent Indo-Pak series, held in different parts of Haryana and organised by the Haryana Olympic Association from June 23 to June 29. The game got good response, especially in the rural areas.

He said the interest shown by HOA in extending invitation to Pakistan team, declared as state guest during their 10-day stay, came through his efforts. He said circle kabaddi was in safe hands as Mr Abhay Singh Chautala had shown keen interest in the game and had agreed to become the secretary of the Asian Amateur Circle Kabaddi Federation.

Sharma said Raja Randhir Singh, secretary of the Indian Olympic Association and the secretary general of the Olympic Council of Asia, had also given positive feedback regarding the inclusion of this sport in Asian Games. It was agreed upon by him to have both the national style and circle style under the head kabaddi in near future. Sharma said in Pakistan, circle style was preferred to the other style.

Sharma described how the circle style of kabaddi was different and unique. It involved one player versus another, while in the national style, it was a player versus one team. Even Pakistan manager Chaudhary Ismail Muhammad during an interview to this reporter last week had commended the circle style as it involved more agility and curiosity in the spectators.

The first senior national men and women kabaddi was conducted in June 1978 at Chandigarh, second in Delhi, and third in SAS Nagar, where 14 states took part.

This year the Punjab association hosted the same at Dhaliwal in Gurdaspur in April. The first international circle kabaddi meet was held in 1991 at Chandigarh where teams from the UK, Canada, Singapore, besides India took part. In 1983, the first visit to Pakistan was made at the invitation of the Pakistan Kabaddi Federation for the diamond jubilee celebration and it was held at Lahore. Then Indian team was also invited for the Mian Obaidullah Memorial Gold Cup Circle Kabaddi Tournament at Lahore in 1985. In 1988, Indian team bagged the 4th Chaudhary Zahoor Elahi Memorial International tournament at Lahore, again in 1989 the team went to play matches at Lahore.

Sharma said that the World Kabaddi Federation will organise the first World Kabaddi Championship this year at Toronto (Canada) where the teams from UK, USA, Pakistan, India and Canada will vie for top honours.

ADMINISTRATION

Admn to promote software development units
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, July 1 — The Chandigarh Administration proposes to promote software development units in large numbers in the Union Territory, said Mrs Vineeta Rai, Adviser to the UT Administrator, here today.

She was speaking at the inauguration of a branch of Informatics, a computer institute in Sector 17 and having a 275-centre network spread across 30 countries. Mrs Rai said the Administration would create infrastructure for the information technology sector that would enable all residents of UT to comprehensively access the benefits of the IT revolution by the year 2005.

The IT mission of the Administration was to provide public service through ‘’e—governance’, to promote industry and business through the use of IT, to reduce unemployment by creating jobs in the IT sector and to increase software exports. The Adviser added that a IT college would be established in Chandigarh for producing IT professionals and B.Tech (information technology) course would be started in the college.

Informatics is a Singapore-based company that operates in India through a joint venture company called Edutech Informatics India Private Limited. The new centre claims to offer all informatics courses which are also available in over 100 informatics computer institutes in India. This includes the recently introduced ‘e—commerce’ course.

Mr Pradeep Tripathi, MD and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Edutech, said the company claimed that more than 40 universities across the USA, UK and Australia have granted recognition to the IT education courses designed and run by Informatics. Besides, its diploma and advanced diploma courses in computer sciences are accredited by the University of Oxford. Mr Vivek Atray, Director, IT, Chandigarh Administration, was also present on the occasion.