HEALTH

Exhibition on hi-tech medical facilities
Tribune News Service

There would be discussions on topics such as income tax, insurance and information technology as applicable to the medical professionals. A free Internet browsing facility would also be provided.

SPORT

PU centre shuttlers win most titles
By Our Sports Reporter

Men’s singles — Vivek Sharma b Ashish Sharma, 11-15, 15-10, 15-11; doubles — Vivek and Varun b Deepak and Naresh, 10-15, 15-6, 15-10; women’s singles — Sarda Devi b Geeta Goel (FCI), 8-11, 11-3, third game conceded; doubles — Sarda and Geeta Goel b Parnita and Bhawna, 15-5, 15-5; above-35 men’s singles — Jagdish Singh b Vijay Sharma; doubles — Col Raj Parmar and Jagdish Singh b M.P. Dogra and Varinder Mehta, 17-14 (conceded); above-45 men’s doubles — Col Raj Parmar and Varinder Mehta b M.P. Dogra and Subhash Nagpal, 15-13, 15-13.

Priyanka, Harkiran skating fest champs
From Our Sports Reporter

CHANDIGARH, Sept 10 — Priyanka among girls and Harkiran among boys won in the above-14 section on the final day of the First Chandigarh Skating Festival organised by the Wonderland Skate Club here in the Sector 10 Skating Rink. Such a meet had been organised for the first time in the city.

Results: Rink race II
(above-14 girls) — Priyanka 1, Pallavi 2, Suparna 3; boys — Harkiran 1, Daksh Gaddi 2, Navdeep 3; 12-14 years (boys)— Sahil Khattar 1, Amandeep 2, Amber 3; girls — Chetna 1, Rajni, 2, Neha 3; 10-12 years (boys) — Gulsagar 1, Arjun 2, Kulwinder 3; girls — Geetika 1, Krishma 2, Himanshi 3.

Age group 8-10 (boys) — Abhishek 1, Manjit 2, Gulrajan 3; girls — Renuka 1, Gurleen 2, Naveeta 3; 6-8 years (boys) — Jatin Rana 1, Mudit Gupta 2, Aseem Jindar 3; girls — Mehak 1, Nourin Nanda 2, Jyotika 3; 4-6 years (boys) — Shivam 1, Naman Nanda 2, Vipin 3; girls — Nupur Arora 1, Salony Bhardwaj 2; below-4 (boys) —Abhishek 1, Dhruv 2, Digpal Rana 3; girls — Ashi Goyal 1, Arushi 2.

Road race: Boys (above-14) — Harkiran 1, Navdeep 2, Jaswinder 3; girls — Suparna 1, Pallavi 2; 12-14 years (boys) — Sahil 1, Sahil Gupta 2, Amber 3; girls (12-14 years) — Rajni 1, Anuradha 2, Neha 3; 10-12 years — Gulsagar 1, Ankit 2, Mayank 3; girls — Geetika 1, Japnet 2, Himanshi 3; 8-10 years (boys) — Gulrajan 1, Manjit 2, Abhishek 3; girls — Gurleen 1, Amber 2, Naveeta 3; 6-8 years (boys) — Shubham 1, girls — Mehak 1, Neha 2, Arushi 3; 4-6 years (boys) — Shivam 1, Naman 2, Vipin 3; (below-4) boys — Abhishek 1, Dhruv 2, Digpal 3; girls — Ashi 1, Arushi 2 (The road races distances) in the under-8 age group was 1,500m, in 8-12 age group 2,000m and in the above-12 age group 1,200m.

ADMINISTRATION

Meeting on ads byelaws today
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, Sept 10 — A meeting of the Finance and Contract Committee of the Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh (MCC) will be held here tomorrow to finalise the advertisement byelaws for the city.

According to sources, the meeting will deliberate on the Amritsar byelaws, the pattern of which the corporation is following. The MCC had earlier urged the Estate Office to transfer the advertisement tax to the civic body.

While aggreeing to the demand, the Estate Office had asked the civic body to frame the byelaws.

CHANDIGARH CALLING

A GOVERNMENT servant can never fulfill his obligation to live through all the four ashrams of his life enjoined on him by the ancient Vedic sages. For one, he can never think of becoming a sanyasin after the age of 60 or 80. The retirement benefits that he is entitled to never fall to his lot in one go — thanks to the lethargic government machinery of which he himself was once a part. He is bound to visit the Secretariat for this or that formality to get all his dues. But what will he do now after the sagacious Punjab government orders that his I-card for gaining admission in the Secretariat ‘‘will not be renewed any more’’ — perhaps a gift to its retired employees by the Punjab government!

Meanwhile the Secretariat Staff watch with glee their tormentors of the past — Under Secretaries, Joint Secretaries, Ex-Deputy Commissioners and even Chief-Secretaries sweating it out in the serpentine queens in the reception hall of the Secretariat to get the entry pass! This must have a kind of cathartic effect on the present framers of rules and regulations to see the past luminaries cut to size.

Enchanted circle

You don’t have to go very far for donning the mantle of a VIP in this country. Being a reasonably important bureaucrat or a ‘‘chhota mota’’ office-bearer of a political party is enough to admit you in that enchanted circle.

What is more, you can double your perks if there is a threat perception to your life — real or manipulated? One of the benefits of being in a risk category is that you can have a majestic boundary wall built around your allotted government accommodation apart from a number of security men standing guard at your gate and running your various errands.

Boundary wall construction has become a starting point for a battle royal between two bureaucrats living in the charmed circle of Sector 16 conglomerate of government houses. The bureaucrat who has acquired a new halo around his person by succeeding to get into the category of threatened species has been dismantling the hedge of his type V house and going ahead furiously with the work of raising a high boundary wall between his and his VIP bureaucrat’s house. The neighbour is in no mood to let him accomplish his protective cover. His plea — the boundary wall will destroy half a dozen mango trees in his side of the house. He will be the last person to be a party to this environmental degradation.

Moreover, as he says, his illustrious neighbour has got the threat perceptions to him manipulated through a near relation of his who is an important functionary in a central government intelligence agency! Will someone unravel the mystery?

In service of Hindi

On the occasion of ‘‘The Millennium World Hindi Conference’’ to be held at Delhi (from Sept 14 to 23) Rajinder Chand, a writer and poet, will be honoured with the award ‘‘Rashtriya Hindi Sewi Sahastrabadi Samman’’ on September 18 for his work done in the field of Hindi.

Besides winning various other prizes, his short story ‘‘Farq’’ won the first prize in the competition organised by Haryana Sahitya Akademi in 1985. A ghazal composed by him won the third prize in the ‘‘Care for the Environment’’ contest organised by the Ministry of Forest and Environment, Government of India, in 1992.

Three books have been penned by him:
1. Kabhi Na Kabhi (short story collection) 1985;
2. Nahin Ab Aur Nahin (short story collection) 1987;
3. Waqt Ki Shatranj Par (Ghazal collection) 1992.

A taxing job

Depositing an electricity bill is an onerous task in City Beautiful. One has to stand in queue for hours or take someone’s obligation to get the job done — that is if you do not have an acquaintance at the collection centre. Visit any bill collection centre and one is intimidated by the length of the queue. While the electricity department has been kind enough to allow the payment of bills at any counter in the city, it has not helped much as there is tremendous rush everywhere, especially if the last date for payment is a day or two away.

The electricity department will do well to emulate the department of telecom which has tied up with certain banks to collect telephone bills. This will certainly save consumers the harassment of standing in long queues every alternate month.

Striking question

Hundreds of city residents are put to a lot of inconvenience whenever the assembly session of the Houses of Punjab and Haryana is underway.

Agitators of all colours and hues throng the housing board roundabout disrupting traffic for hours altogether. The entire area is temporarily turned into a police camp with hundreds of cops, water cannons and helmeted personnel in riot gear in full readiness.

Bursting of tear gas, use of the water cannon and cane charges are a common occurrence almost everyday. The worst sufferers, besides those injured in the scuffle with the cops, are city residents, who finding the road from the Rose Garden to the sector 16 \ 17 traffic lights closed, have to undertake detours.

The idea of shifting the venue of protests to the parade ground was shot down recently by the administration since officers were of the view that it was the closest place that the agitators could come to the secretariat and the state assemblies.

But many people ask: Why do we have to be unwilling victims of someones else’s grouse ? Doesn’ t it merit a rethink on the issue?

Sandy city roads

Come rains and the city residents start bracing themselves for an ordeal. Even a light drizzle inundates the low-lying areas around the city’s busy roundabouts, forcing vehicular traffic to move at snail’s pace on the roads strewn with sand, silt and slush.

Nasty potholes, sand, silt and of course, cesspools of slush are some of the ‘‘gifts’’ that the city receives in the aftermath of the fury of rains. The rain god’s wrath is more conspicuous in the low-lying areas where driving is too dicey an affair.

The potholes are not plugged for months and become death traps.

A neighbour had to be rushed to a city hospital the other day with broken ribs, after the scooter he was pillion-riding tumbled on a sandy road while negotiating a U-turn. Thank God, he had a narrow escape!

‘‘Fauj hai Mauj’’

A final year student of Panjab University, Navdeep Singh, released his book of thoughts on the men in uniform. Titled ‘‘Fauj hai Mauj’’, it takes a look at the lighter side of the army life and is based on actual happenings, sayings, anecdotes and jokes on the military.

Complete with illustrations by his buddy, Kanwar Aulakh, the book will not be available on shop-shelves in the market but can be ordered by mail. Additional information can be obtained by e-mail at armybrat @ satyam. net. in.

Navdeep is the son of a serving army officer and has been writing since the age of 12 years. It is this experience he has penned down to cook up a feast.

— Sentinel

READERS WRITE

Kaun Banega Crorepati — the Pied Piper of India

“To be (crorepati) or not to be” is haunting my mind since I became aware of the Star Plus show Kaun Banega Crorepati. Ramesh Dubey, having won Rs 50 lakh, has slipped into the list of adorables. After all he has achieved “it”, if not completely, at least substantially.

My 9-year-old son said, “Papa you have wasted your studies. Why didn’t you pay attention in the beginning and dial the number leading to one crore?” I am repenting for not keeping pace with the fast-moving world. When my wife said, “Tum se achha to yeh Dubey Hai,” it shocked me. What a lucky man he is! I curse the day I chose Saraswati instead of Luxmi. Saraswati’s regular worship might have blessed me with academic achievements, but it has not given me the “real knowledge” which can fetch me Rs 1 crore.

No worse an enemy I have these days than the Telephone Department, which regularly plays the recorded tape “Lines are busy. Please dial after some time.” “Ye lo! a news item has appeared — Kaun Banega Crorepati in the grip of TV mafia.” Perhaps the underworld dons have lost patience and want to stake their claim on it, as they do in the other cases.

What will happen to the civil services aspirants who have started concentrating on this show and have dropped the idea of joining the IAS. There is a furor everywhere. Kids have changed their targets. Women have said goodbye to the kitchen and household chores and have picked up general knowledge books. Officegoers are found busy in mugging up questions and answers. Mock KBC shows are arranged. After all, who knows when lady luck may smile on them and make them a crorepati.
Maheshwar Sharma
Naraingarh (Ambala)

Stray cattle
Stray cattle roaming on the roads not only hinder the smooth flow of traffic, but also cause accidents and sometimes hit and injure pedestrians. Some time ago, my aged father was on his morning walk in Phase II at Mohali when he was hit in the back by a rampaging bull. It got violent when my father took it by the horns in an attempt to save himself and ran away only when the people around started throwing stones at it.

I later came to know that the same bull had attacked many people in the area, killing a gardener and inflicting grievous injuries on the Sarpanch of Madanpur village.

I fail to understand the Municipal Committee’s indifference to the menace caused by such stray animals. It should capture these animals in the interest of the safety of the residents of Mohali.
R. K. Soni

MOHALI

Poor sanitation
The Khattarwara street and the bylanes facing Dharamshala Gainda Mal in Ambala City remain neglected by sweepers of the Municipal Corporation. Heaps of garbage spread stench all around. The drainage system in this area has not been cleaned for a long time. Sanitary Inspectors rarely visit the area which only compounds the neglect by the sweepers in maintaining cleanliness in this area. Broken toilet pipes of houses in the upper storeys further pollute the area. Stray cattle and pigs roam about freely. Broken street patches have also not been repaired for a long time. I urge the Councillor to make a round of the area and take corrective steps at the earliest.
Brij Mohan Sharma

AMBALA CITY

Bhai Mati Dass Bhavan
This is with reference to the report “PU Students Centre in a shambles” (Chandigarh Tribune, August 7). Bhai Mati Dass Bhavan in Sector 11 is also in a similar state. Congress grass grows in abundance here and stray cattle and dogs roam about freely.

Lt-Gen B.K.N. Chhibber (Retd), former Governor of Punjab and Administrator of Chandigarh, who is a descendant of Bhai Mati Dass, had announced on April 26, 1998, that by April, 1999, the bhavan “would emerge as a nodal centre of social service with an old-age home, a library, a conference hall and an open-air theatre.” He also got a grant of Rs 10 lakh from the Punjab Chief Minister, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, and an additional grant of Rs 5 lakh from the Finance Minister, Capt Kanwaljit Singh, for this purpose.

Despite these handsome grants, nothing has been done to complete the bhavan and neglect of the bhavan’s site continues. This is an insult to the great martyr and the people should be told why the bhavan has not been completed so far.
Narinder Singh
Chandigarh