Protect your ears or else...
Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, November 3
City doctors have sent out a word of caution to residents who want to live it up with crackers this Divali. The DMCH’s Department of ENT receives a large number of cases every year relating to loss of hearing from the sound of crackers and hence the department has decided to caution residents against this hazard.

Dr Manish Munjal, Reader, ENT Department, said: “At the DMCH we receive more than a dozen cases of firework trauma and it has been seen that more than 70 per cent of the patients are children and have a hearing loss involving the frequency of 4 KHZ and 3 KHZ. Patients with ear perforations come quite late, as initially there is complaint of numbness in ears. These patients mostly have ear discharge, due to improper treatment given by the quacks. Hospitalisation and right medication in early cases is required in very serious cases of hearing loss. Most of these cases can be avoided by taking necessary precautions”.

According to him, sudden numbness of ears, loss of ability to hear, ringing, buzzing or hissing sound in ears or mild blood tinged discharge the ears following exposure to firework. Crackers produce sound waves of very high intensity, more than 100 decibel which affect the ears in two ways — one is the pressure of the wave hits the ear drum causing a perforation and affects the nerves of hearing, producing sometimes irreversible affects.

Experts agree that exposure to very loud noise leads to a temporary loss of hearing with full recovery if not exposed to similar type of noise within the first hour of exposure. Sometimes, if exposed continuously to a very loud noise from a chain of fire crackers, the recovery is hindered and there is a hearing loss, which might be permanent, if not treated at earliest possible by the specialist. 

Kabbadi league set up
Our Sports Reporter

Ludhiana, November 3
The Punjab Rural Sports Promotion Council will organise the All-India Kabaddi (circle style) League tournament to promote the game in the state. A decision in this regard was taken at a meeting of the council here yesterday that was convened by an NRI, Mr Jaswant Singh Grewal, chairman of the council.

The kabaddi league matches would be held during rural sports tournaments conducted by the council across Punjab. This league will be established in the memory of kabaddi player Tony Alankar, who died of blood cancer about two years ago.

Eight top teams of circle-style kabaddi will take part in this league, the inaugural match of which will be played on November 15 during the Kartar Singh Sarabha Rural Sports Festival at Sarabha village near here. The final will be played in February, 2003 in Guru Nanak Stadium of Ludhiana.

Each participating team will get Rs 10,000 per match and the winners will pocket a cash prize of Rs 1,50,000 along with a gold cup trophy. The runner-up will get a cash prize of Rs 1,00,000. The best raider and the best stopper of this league will get a motor cycle each.

The aspirant teams may contact Mr Devi Dyal, president of the Punjab Rural Sports Promotion Council, before November 8, for entries.

The next meeting of the council will be held on November 9 in Ludhiana, where the fixtures of this league will be finalised and a committee will be formed to organise the tournament.

Mr Prithipal Singh (Batala), Mr Pawitter Singh Grewal, Mr Tarlochan Singh Sarpanch of Lalton Kalan, Mr Sharnjit Singh, Mr Inderjit Singh Grewal, Mr Dharamjet Singh and Mr Kanwaljit Singh Randhawa attended the meeting.