The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Chandigarh Stories

Camp on disability prevention
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Sept 8 — The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) has drawn out a programme to train grassroots level health and social workers in the disability prevention and rehabilitation. To achieve this aim, the first workshop is being held at Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32 from September 11 to 15.

A group of 25 faculty members from medical colleges of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh belonging to the specialities of orthopaedics, ENT, community medicine, psychiatry and ophthalmology will be trained as master trainers. These trainers will disseminate the knowledge to the peripheral level of district hospital in their respective states.

At a meeting held in New Delhi recently, a panel of medical experts drawn from various specialities chalked out a curriculum for imparting training to medical professionals at the grassroots level in the field of disability prevention and rehabilitation. Prof Raj Bahadur, Head, Department of Orthopaedics, GMCH-32, has been appointed as the nodal officer for imparting training to the doctors in the northern region.

Dr Bahadur pointed out that the number of disabled was rising alarmingly in the country. He said it had been estimated by WHO that approximately 10 per cent of the population suffer from disability of one kind or other.

It is estimated that at present, not more than 3 per cent of the disabled get the benefit of rehabilitation services.

The workshop will be inaugurated by the UT Adviser to the Administrator, Mrs Vineeta Rai.

SPORT

Skating championship from today
By Our Sports reporter

CHANDIGARH, Sept 8 — The first Chandigarh Skating Festival, involving more than 150 skaters drawn from various schools, clubs situated in the city and its nearby areas, will begin tomorrow at Skating Rink, Sector 10. Giving this information, Mr N.S. Sewak, president of the Wonderland Skate Club, said today that the aim of the club was to provide impetus to the sport in this part of the country.

Mr Sewak said the city had produced a large number of skaters who donned national colours in various events of skating such as roller hockey and speed. He said the club was formed with the sole intention to help the young skaters, who just for want of funds or due to inadequate exposure lag behind in skating. He said the two-day tournament included rink races I and II, sub-junior and junior hockey on September 9 and road races, roller hockey and final races on September 10.

Mr Pawan Sharma, another club member, said that the road races would add glamour to this event, which will be held at the Sukhna Lake road on Sunday from 6 am onwards for age groups 4-6, 6-8 and above.

Mr Sewak further said that prominent skaters of the city would also be honoured. These are, Radhika Mehta, P. Kamboj, Jaswinder Singh, Paramjit Singh, Harkiran Singh, Kriti Puri and Arvind Chauhan among others. The technical officials who will supervise the tournament are: Harpreet Singh Kirti, Harpreet Singh and Shammi.

Mr P.S. Chhabra, secretary general, School Games Federation of India, will inaugurate the meet at 10 a.m. tomorrow.

Badminton tourney
Sarda Devi, a new entrant on the Chandigarh badminton scene, created a flutter on Friday when she downed defending champion Mala Gaba in extended games to join Geeta Goel, the nine-time Chandigarh state badminton champion, on her way to the finals of the women singles event of the Chandigarh State Badminton championship being played here at the Sector 42 Indoor Hall.

Sarda who had only this year shifted to city and taken admission in the local MCM DAV College for Women, Sector 36 took no time to adjust against her junior rival Mala of Government Senior Secondary School, Sector 16. At one time Mala was leading at 6-0, but here she lost control of the game.

Geeta Goel had little difficulty in disposing of Isha Sharma at 11-4, 13-10. The second seed in under-19 girls, Mala Gaba outplayed Parneeta Verma at 11-8, 11-6 to enter the final of this section.

Results: Boys under-19: — QF: Deepak Sidhu b Akash Sidhu 15-6, 15-8; Robin b Sidharth 15-9,15-5;Vivek Sharma b Paras Gupta 15-7, 15-10.

Men singles: QF — Amit Sachdeva b Varun Sharma 15-6, 17-5.

Above 35 Jagdish Singh b MP Dogra 15-4, 15-8.

Above 45 doubles: MP Dogra and Subhash Nagpal b Mehal Chand and Prem Kapoor 15-13, 15-9.

Above 35 doubles — Sanjay Judge and Bedhi b Kanwaljit and A K Mittal 15-5, 10-15, 15-10.

Adventure festival
The Adventure Sports Association of Chandigarh (ASAC) and the Punjab Adventure and Water Sports Association will jointly hold the north zone adventure festival in the last week of this month. This was decided in a meeting presided over by Mr D S Saroya, DPI, Schools, UT, who is also the senior vice-president of the ASAC.

The events to be organised included long distance swimming in 2 km section at the Sukhna Lake for boys and girls in age groups 14 -16 years and 17-18 years.

Under-12 cricket
St Kabir’s School, Sector 26, will take on Stadium ‘A’ in the final of the under-12 inter school cricket tournament on September 9 at the Sector 16 cricket stadium. The match, which will be of 25 overs a side, will begin at 1 p m . Mr Pawan Bansal local MP will be the chief guest and will give away the prizes.

An upcoming shooter
By Our Sports Reporter

CHANDIGARH, Sept 8 — Shooting is coming up fast in India, particularly in this part of the country, with the availability of latest weapons and growing interest. It has also been given recognition at the international level, with more sons and daughters of Sikh families taking to the sport. A new shooter has hit the headlines recently — Sukhmanpreet Singh Sidhu.

Sukhman is the son of Mr Inderpal Singh Sidhu, an Assistant Advocate-General of Punjab and belongs to Bathinda. He recently broke the national record in .177 10-metre air rifle peep sight while participating in the GV Mavlankar shooting meet in Chennai. He scored 381 out of 400, while the previous record in the same event was scored by Bhuwan Swar Singh Rathore (371/400) in Ahmedabad in 1999.

Recalling his practice schedule, Sukhman told that he took to shooting only eight months back, though he learnt the fundamentals of the game in 1996. In between, he stopped regular shooting due to non-availability of a good-quality rifle. When he got his German rifle for Rs 1.5 lakh, his confidence went up.

Sukhman shifted to Chandigarh in 1996 from Bathinda and studied at Government College, Sector 46, where he completed his graduation. In his very first year he scored 344/400 in the national games. He practices daily at his 3B II shooting range in SAS Nagar and spends three to four hours. He sometimes goes to Col J.S. Dhillon’s house in Sector 35 for practice.

He has taken admission in Law College, Bangalore. His main aim is to serve the country in various international meets. A gold medal for India in Asian Games or Olympics will make him feel satisfied.