Admn officials donate blood
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 20
As many as 150 officials of the Chandigarh Administration donated blood at a blood donation camp organised at UT Secretariat, Sector 9, here today.

The UT Administrator, Justice O.P. Verma (retd), inaugurated the camp. He interacted with donors and appreciated the efforts of government departments for organising the camp. The camp was organised by the administration at the request of the PGI, Chandigarh, following acute shortage of blood.

Mr R.S. Gujral, Home Secretary, Mr M.P. Singh, Commissioner, Municipal Corporation, Mr Ashok Sangwan, Joint Secretary Home, were among the donors. A team of doctors from the PGI, comprising Dr R.R. Sharma, Dr Usha Rao and Dr Ravinder, conducted the camp. Dr Usha Rao said due to summer vacations in schools and colleges there was an acute shortage of blood at the PGI and added that 150-160 units of blood was required daily in the hospitals, whereas 50-60 units of blood was required daily for patients suffering from thalassaemia.

AIDS awareness camp for jail inmates
Our Correspondent

Chandigarh, June 20
In order to spread awareness on AIDS among jail inmates, the 11th camp of the nationwide Family Health Awareness Campaign was organised by the UT State AIDS Control Society in association with the Indian Council of Social Welfare and jail authorities at Model Burail Jail here today.

Giving details, Dr N.M. Sharma, Project Director of the State AIDS Control Society, said Mr Karan A. Singh, Finance Secretary-cum Health and Chairman, State AIDS Control Society, presided over the camp.

Dr C.P. Bansal, Director Health Services, observed that such awareness camps were helpful for jail inmates since they were part of the society. 

SPORTS

Garima, Vijayant enter finals
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, June 20
Garima Vatwani and Vijayant Malik made their way into the final of the under-14 girls’ and boys’ singles section, respectively, in the Fort Saint Soldier’s Total Tennis AITA Championship, being played at St Soldier’s school, Panchkula. Top seed Vijayant had to fight hard in beating Rahul Jain. He would meet Navinder Pal Singh in the final. In the girls’ final, to be played tomorrow, Garima would face Navjot Saini.

Results: semi-finals: Under 14: girls: Garima Vatwani b Roop Rihal 6-0, 6-1; Navjot Saini b Noor Paul 6-1, 6-0; boys: Vijayant Malik b Rahul Jain 6-4, 7-5; Navinder Pal Singh b Pulkit Mishra 7-6 (5), 6-0; boys’ doubles: Vijayant and Deepinder b Parul and Gurmohit 6-1, 6-1; Rahul and Pulkit b Akshat and Sidharth 6-3, 6-1.

Swimming tourney

The third Major P.P.S. Sidhu memorial invitational swimming championship will be held at the Government Yoga Centre swimming pool, Sector 23, on July 4 and 5. 

Kinshuk a tennis prodigy
Arvind Katyal

Chandigarh, June 20
Perseverance and patience plays big role in the growing of a sportsperson. One such example is of Chandigarh’s Kinshuk Sharma, who began playing tennis at the tender age of four and after almost 10 years, this boy is ranked number one in India in the under 14 age group.

A Class IX student of St John’s High School, Sector 26, Chandigarh, a shy Kinshuk is a product of Chandigarh Lawn Tennis Association tennis courts, in Sector 10. Chandigarh Tribune met this young star, who is all set to follow his seniors, Sunil Kumar, Amanjot Singh, Tushar Liberhan among others in maintaining the glory of tennis in the city , recently.

His father is a senior IPS officer while his mother is a senior IRS officer. Kinshuk is an example of a hardworking player dedicated to the cause of the game.

On the basis of his achievements in the past one year in the best nine AITA tournaments held in the country, Kinshuk has emerged a leader in the under 14 section. As per the latest ranking list announced by the All India Tennis Association (AITA), this July, 1989 born, Kinshuk earned 240 points. He is followed by Tejas Chaukulkar of Maharashtra, who got 235 points, followed by another Maharashtra player, Agnel Gladwin Peter who secured 231 points.

Among the top 10 ranked players in the under 14 group Kaushik Das of Assam is at number four, followed by Mesheer Vaswani of Karnataka, Navneetha B Kannan of Tamil Nadu, GP Prajneesh, Debendra Das, Jairaj Desai and Krishna Karsolia of Uttar Pradesh at tenth place.

Kinshuk says he has played AITA junior tournaments at various places like Amritsar, Patna, Lucknow, Kolkata and Delhi.

About his future plans, Kinshuk says in vacation, these days, he is trying to finish his homework and devote more time to studies. The next month, he will return to tennis. He says various national tournaments such as national tennis meet and Adidas Masters meet are in the pipeline for the later part of the year, in which he hopes to improve performance.

Attributing his success to his father Mr SM Sharma, he says his father’s love for tennis made him learn the finer points of the sport. About meeting travelling expenses, Kinshuk says he is lucky to have the backing of Indian Airlines which under its junior sports talent scholarship scheme bears the travelling expenses of promising sportspersons, within country or abroad.

About the intake of diet, he says he takes both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food, but sometimes for the sake of taste, he likes to have chips or burgers.

Kinshuk praises the efforts of coaches of CLTA in training the youngsters. He says the vast infrastructure at Tennis Stadium, Sector 10, is of world class and the number of international level tournaments held here all a testimony to it.

ADMINISTRATION

Admn move on RCs draws flak
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 20
The Consumers Forum, Chandigarh, today criticised the decision of the Chandigarh Administration to get the addresses changed on the registration certificates of vehicles against a fee of Rs 300 per vehicle. The forum called it as unjustified, arbitrary and not consumer friendly.

It goes against tenants and government employees particularly and all the vehicle owners generally. As every family unit has two to four vehicles and a sudden slap of Rs 1200 will cost dearly. The rule will apply if a person who has changed his accommodation recently even within Chandigarh. And it will even more of a financial burden when a person will have to deposit road tax proportionately as per the new age of the vehicle again to the new registration authority if the vehicle happens to be registered somewhere else other than Chandigarh and the tax already deposited with the previous registration authority is not refunded generally.

The step would have been welcomed by all if the financial part in the aspect would have not been there. The financial part must be taken care off as it will add to the burden of owners. The process will not stop anywhere in case of tenants who have to change accommodation and also for government employees who are allotted fresh accommodation as their turn comes.