HEALTH

Health and hygiene awareness camp
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 30
The Lotus Foundation, a voluntary organisation working for the welfare of slum children, yesterday organised a health and hygiene awareness camp for the children of Apna School as well as other children from the adjoining slum area in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Colony in Sector 49.

According to Prof R. M. Devgan, Chairman and Founder Trustee of the Foundation, children and their parents were given practical demonstration to make hand-pump water fit for drinking by boiling it, filtering it through cloth and then keeping it covered during the summer and rainy season.

Prof Devgan impressed upon the children to keep their homes and streets clean and safe from mosquitoes and other insects. He claimed that 110 children attended the camp.

SPORTS

Infighting takes toll on basketball players
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, April 30
The infighting for key posts in the Chandigarh Basketball Association, especially for the post of secretary, has resulted in a state where players have been made to suffer.

Last year, the president of the association, Col A.S. Judge, had decided to replace Mr K.S. Bharti with Mr A.S. Yadav as secretary. He had stated to newspersons that the decision would help in promoting the game. “Though Mr Yadav is considered to be a good and versatile coach in the local circles, he occupies a back seat in the matters relating to administration,” commented a senior basketball player. Only last month, a meeting of the CBA was held that also saw the presence of administrators like Mr D.S. Bedi, Mr Ravinder Talwar, Dr A.C. Vaid. There Col Judge decided to retain Mr Bharti as secretary and asked the team to work for the development of basketball in the city.

This was followed by the decision of the Sports Authority of India not to send girls of the STC, Sector 18, to take part in an event. The current scenario was rather murky, as various state championships were not being organised with much fanfare and drew thin presence of the key office-bearers of the association. Also, during the selection of the teams for the various national meets in different age groups, stress was more on pleasing representatives of various bodies. The performance of the players had been dismal at the national level because the selections were not fair.

Last year, IS Dev Samaj Girls Senior Secondary School did not send its players in protest against improper treatment meted out to its girls during a state meet. This year, the same school team whipped almost every team. Likewise, the gap between the winning team and its rival was in one case more than 40 points. But, today out of the 19 probable announced, the winning school team surprisingly has only six girls. Out of these19, 12 will be selected for the nationals. In the final list, how many players will manage to get selected from the school is anybody’s guess. Sports experts are of the view that if the present trend continues, basketball will be wiped out of the city.

Meanwhile, the following probable were announced today by the Chandigarh Basketball Association in both boys and girls section. The camp will begin from tomorrow and will continue till May 7. The boys camp will be held at Government Model High School, Sector 26, while the girls camp will be held at SAI, STC, Sector 18.

Boys: Balraj, Rajinder, Manoj (all DAV, Sector 8); Munish, Hardeep, Gurinder (New Public School-18); Vinod, Parween, Rajbir, Sandeep (Shivalik Public School-41), Hardeep (Government Model School-33), Ravitaj, Harminder (both ST Xavier’s-44), Sachin (Government Model School-26), Samdar Singh (Guru Nanak Khalsa School-30), Suraj (SGH School), Arun (MRA Senior Secondary School-27), Narinder Singh and Narinder Jinjha (SD College-32), Mohit and Ravinder (PML SD Public School-32).

Girls: Shweta, Amandeep, Sumit, Prabhjot, Manpreet and Varsha (IS Dev Samaj School-21), Anju Nagpal, Kanupriya (both Bhavan Vidyalya-27), Navneet, Sumandeep, Simran (Government Model High School-26), Shilpa, Yashita (both MRA Senior Secondary School-27), Kanchan (GMSS-26); Jaspreet Kaur (Government Model Senior Secondary School-18), Avneet (Vivek High School-38), Heena and Tania (Sacred Heart School-26) and Sukhmani (St Peter’s School-37).