HEALTH

Drug abuse among students

Drug abuse is spreading in Chandigarh at an alarming rate and most of the victims of this evil are students. Drug traffickers roam around educational institutions and lure innocent children, offering them drugs like brown sugar. Once a student starts using the drug, he becomes an addict and also encourages others to use the narcotic. He starts working for the drug mafia. Such instances are common in the metropolitan cities and have also been notices in Chandigarh. The parents have to be extra cautious to keep their children away from this dreadful evil. If a child shows any of these signs, he needs to be watched closely.

(a) His academic performances goes down. He remains absent from his class and hesitates to take part in competitions.

(b) He sleeps in day time and stays awake till late in the night, meets his friends secretly and stays in the toilet for long. He demands more pocket money and does not hesitate to borrow money or he takes away costly articles from home.

(c) His face becomes yellow, the eyes go red and black spots appear under the eyes. He loses appetite, taste and weight, feels lonely and lazy and tries to be secretive. His creative power is reduced; he tells lies and fumbles while talking.

(d) He becomes irritated easily over-reacts and becomes indifferent to cleanliness.

(e) There are blood stains on his clothes, and empty bottles, droppers, injections and pieces of shining papers are found in his room.

Let us start a war against drug abuse so that the future generation is saved from this menace.

Saurabh Arora
Class X
St. John’s High School,
Chandigarh

Work on PGI cardiac centre apace
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 13
The work on the PGI Advanced Cardiac Centre is progressing with the completion of site clearance work and dismantling of old barracks on the site almost complete with 80 percent of the work under way.

Besides this, the equipment load and other specific requirements for inviting the tender for this multi crore project are in the final stages and the Draft Notice inviting tender is likely to be submitted by the consulting architects for scrutiny and approval.

A sum of Rs 46.42 crore has already been allocated for the centre to meet the equipment requirement of its various units like Intensive Coronary Care Unit, Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratory, EP and Pacing Laboratory, Nuclear Cardiology Laboratory, Operation Theatres and Surgical Intensive Care Units.

Departments of Cardiology and Cardiothoraccic Surgery, PGI provide modern facilities for management of patients with cardiovascular diseases for patients from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Besides this, the two departments also get patients from far off places in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Nepal.

However, working in its present capacity the two departments are unable to cope up with the tremendous patient load. It was with this view in mind that the central government had accepted the proposal for the Institute of Advanced Cardiac Centre for better care of heart patients.

The proposal will have a comprehensive plan for 200-bed cardiology and cardiovascular surgery centre. The centre has been designed as a self contained hospital with modern state of the art facilities for prevention, detection, treatment, cure and rehabilitation of all forms of cardiovascular diseases. The centre will also provide training facilities for DM and M.Ch courses in cardiovascular diseases and Ph.D in related sciences.

SPORTS

20 city cricketers for England
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, July 13
As many as 20 young cricketers, all boys in the age group of 14 -22 will take off for England next Monday on a 15-day tour of this cricket playing country for a series of matches at Leicester and its peripheral areas.

These cricket players, all part of the Chandigarh Cricket Association Academy, will be provided with free boarding and lodging by the Leicester Bank Sports Club and the air ticket is being sponsored by the CCA Academy, said Sukhinder Singh Bawa the Sports Authority of India coach who will accompany the team as coach.

He said the benefit of playing in this season was that many players from different countries will be there for the matches “so it will help our players to gain more confidence.”

These boys are at present being trained by Bawa at DAV Cricket Coaching Centre, Sector 8. He said efforts will be made to provide these boys with maximum exposure. Bawa, who was the assistant coach of the Indian women cricket team that toured New Zealand last year, said the boys were physically fit and he hoped to have good results from them.

The team is: Jasminder Singh (captain), Ravinder Nain, Amit Uniyal, Vikramjit Sodhi, Gurinder Pal Singh, Sandeep Pal, Iqbal Singh, Sahil Bhatia, Poras Chaudhary, Sidharth Chaturvedi, Shalinder Singh, Ricky Sharma, Rohit, Mohit, Varun Sethi, Gaurav Chopra, Aseem Gupta, Harpreet Singh, Arjit Pal Singh and Pritpal Singh. officials: SS Bawa and Anil Sharma.

Where eagles dare: a shot at world record
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 13
About 100 youths will begin a 1,700-km-long expedition to Khardung La from here on August 10 with an aim to finish the journey in record 10 days.

“We plan to hoist the Tricolour on the pass on August 15. The existing record for the highest number of motor cycles reaching the pass in a group is 40 vehicles and we aim to beat this record,” said Mr Kulbir Singh Gaba, head of the Chandigarh Adventure Association (CAA) and organiser of the expedition.

Mr Gaba, who returned from a reconnaissance visit to the pass yesterday, said the most difficult part of the expedition was crossing points where streams flowed onto the road. There is a lack of oxygen at 18,380 feet above the sea level where the pass is situated and the roads there are poor. There is a constant fear of landslides and accidents due to fog and rain.

He said the members of the expedition would also cross Tanga La on their way to Khardung La. Tanga La the world’s second highest place that can be reached on motor vehicles.

There is a backup team of doctors and mechanics, besides a truck carrying camping and ration material, for the expedition. The truck is equipped with communication gadgets that have been provided by the Himachal Avalanche Association.

The Himachal Pradesh Government and the Indian Army will provide he members of the expedition with the refueling facility at Sarchu, as there is no other filling station within 400 km of the point.

The CAA will incur an expenditure of Rs 10 to Rs 12 lakh on this journey that is not possible for seven months in a year.

The expedition has been planned in a way that allows the participants to get acclimatised before reaching the dizzying heights.

The organisers will charge the participants for petrol, lodging and boarding, while they stay in Chandigarh for medical and vehicle tests. The expedition will have four legs — Chandigarh to Mandi (200 km), Mandi to Khoskar (170 km), Khoskar to Sarchu (175 km) and Sarchu to Leh (240 km).

Row over issuing car stickers
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 13
The mode of issuing car stickers by the Chandigarh Administration to allow parking of vehicles within the UT Secretariat has raised a controversy with some middle-level officers , who have been denied the facility are not liking it one bit.

What had ‘‘offended’’ such officers is that personal staff of senior officers and a few correspondents of various newspapers have been issued stickers for their private cars. On the other hand, official vehicles at the level of executive engineers, have not been issued parking stickers. Their vehicles are parked at the rear side of the secretariat.

The officials who have been ignored are posted in various engineering sub-divisions located around the city and have to visit the secretariat on a day-to-day basis for meetings with their senior officers. They do not stay in the building for more than one hour or at the most two hours at a stretch.

Such acts only help in downgrading posts alleged an XEN, who for obvious reasons did not want to be quoted.

It is just a matter of principle the parking inside the secretariat can easily take another eight to 10 vehicles. It is the status which hurts and not the distance one has to walk from the parking at the rear side which is no more than 50 yards from the entrance.