The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Chandigarh Stories

HEALTH

New technique to remove brain tumour
Vijay Mohan
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 31
A new technique to remove brain tumour, which not only cuts down on surgery time and hospital stay but also drastically reduces the possibility of complications, has been introduced by the Western Command Hospital at Chandimandir.

Sources said that the technique, termed Transnasal Transphenoidal Hypophysectomy (TTH) in medical parlance, was first tried out at the hospital this month and four patients were treated. Another four patients are scheduled to be operated upon.

Doctors at the hospital claimed that this was the first hospital north of Delhi to introduce this type of surgery. It is done to remove tumours near the pituitary gland, situated at the bottom of the brain. The surgery involves neurosergeons as well as ENT specialists.

Though this type of tumour, called Pituitary Adenoma, is stated to be a “fairly common” disorder, only a handful of hospitals in the country have adopted the TTH method to remove it.

Earlier, the surgery required opening the skull by making an incision across the forehead and lifting the brain. In TTH, the affected area is approached through the nasal passage and the sinus, giving doctors a “direct hit” at the tumour.

The first TTH procedure undertaken in Command Hospital took about three hours, but the time has now been further reduced to just about one-and-a-half hours. The earlier method involving major surgery used to take 6 to 7 hours, a doctor said.

“What is more important is that the chances of complications during surgery have been drastically reduced as the brain and nerves in the skull are not disturbed,” he added.

Besides, after undergoing the surgery through TTH, the patient can be discharged from the hospital within the four days.

SPORTS

Boys handball meet from July 31
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, March 31
The city has been allotted the 27 edition of the Junior National Boys Handball Championship to be held from July 31 to August 5, said Mr Ravinder Talwar, secretary, Chandigarh Handball Association.

While releasing the association’s annual calendar, Mr Talwar said the 19th Sub-junior Boys and Girls State Handball Championship would be held in the last week of April at DAV Senior Secondary School, Sector 8.

The 18th UT Junior Boys and Girls State Handball Meet would be held in July and the 25th Senior Men and Women Handball State Championship in October. Mr Talwar said UT teams would also participate in the 21st National Sub-Junior; the 6th Mini Girls Meet at Renukoot from May 18 to 23; the 21st National Sub-Junior Girls; and the 6th Mini Boys Championship at Dharamshala from May 30 to June 4.

Cricket tournament
Gaurav Puri who scored 64 runs in 71 deliveries enabled Cricket Stadium, Sector 16, in beating Gaziabad Mahanagar Cricket Association by 57 runs to enter the semi-final of the under-13 Second SN Vohra League-cum-Cricket Tournament played at the Sector 16 cricket Stadium, here.

Ist tie :CS-16: 178 runs for four in 35 overs (Gaurav Puri 64 n.o, Sahib Malhotra 39, Lakhan 18, Akash 2 for 19). GMCA XI:122 runs for six in 35 overs (Dheeraj 35,Vishesh 30, Gurinder 2 for 19, Ashish 2 for 30).

IInd tie; Brief scores: MES, Patiala XI: 174 runs for nine in 40 overs (Jaspreet Singh 52, Neetant 28, Seemant 19, Shivin 15, Karan Goel 3 for 22). Satluj CC:, Pkl: 95 runs all out in 32 overs (Varun Pandhi 31, Krishna 16, Neetant 2 for 16, Kulwinder 2 for 15).

Third tie: brief scores; MCA XI: 121 runs in 39.5 overs (Ankit Pursharthi 57 n.o., Satya Pratik 29, Abhishek 2 for 13, Jatin 2 for 24, Ankit Kaushik 2 for 15).

CCA and DAV-10: 124 runs for three in 34.4 overs (Manan Vohra 37, Akshit 26, Ankit Kaushik 26 n.o.).

Fourth tie: DCF Delhi; 85 runs all out in 37.4 overs (Kunwar 22, Suvansh 15, Vikram Talwar 3 for 18, Sidharth Prasher 2 for 11). St John’s School: 87 runs for three in 11.4 overs (Kunal Mahajan 46 n.o., Vikram Talwar 15 n.o.).

Campus sportspersons honoured
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, March 31
The annual sports prize distribution function of Panjab University Campus was held in the gymnasium hall of the university today. Mr G.S. Randhawa, Arjuna awardee, was the chief guest. While applauding the efforts of the sportspersons in bringing laurels to the university, Mr Randhawa, a former ace athlete, lamented that no eminent sportsperson was present at the function.

Mr T.S. Sandhu, Deputy Director, Sports, Panjab University, said 14 campus teams won positions in the inter-college competitions in men’s section. The campus remained champion in shooting, softball, table tennis, lawn tennis and water polo. It was second in basketball, cricket, judo, volleyball and yoga, while third in badminton, gymnastics, kho-kho and rowing. In the women’s section, teams bagged second place in badminton, rowing, and swimming and third in gymnastics and yoga.

In this session, 62 sportspersons, including 42 boys were selected for various inter-varsity tournaments. Mr Sandhu said 14 sportspersons were honoured for leading the teams. They were: Sankant Sharma — archery; Amanpreet Singh — basketball; Rakesh Chand — softball; Aseem Parmar — Water Polo; Sikandar Jaitley — tennis; Amit Khatkar — volleyball; Paras Arora — yoga; and Sarabjeet Singh Randhawa — shooting.

Women: Anju — rowing; H Sarda — badminton; Ranjeeta — basketball; Ritu Aithani — gymnastics, Kirandeep Kaur — swimming; and Poonam —Yoga.

Campus colours were given to 100 sportspersons and tracksuits to 148 sportspersons.

Kirandeep Kaur and Pooja got the distinction of representing the combined universities rowing team in the National Rowing Championship.

ADMINISTRATION

Parks in a state of neglect; SDO to be suspended
Our Correspondent

Mohali, March 31
The Deputy Speaker of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha and Kharar MLA, Mr Bir Devinder Singh, who inspected various parks in the town this evening was highly disappointed as no proper maintenance had been carried out in them. He directed the PUDA authorities to chargesheet and suspend the SDO concerned as he had failed to perform his duty in a satisfactory manner.

He said he had inspected various parks in the town about four months ago, but the condition of these parks had not undergone any change since then. There was no arrangement of drinking water in certain parks while many other lacked a proper irrigation system. He said there was a need to “tone up” the horticulture wing of PUDA.

Mr Bir Devinder Singh, who was accompanied by senior PUDA and Municipal Council officials during inspection, said that 95 lights had been stolen from the mango belt, developed by PUDA, and no responsibility had been fixed by the authorities concerned in this regard. Instead, a new estimate for Rs 3 lakh had been prepared by PUDA officials. He said the financial loss from the lights stolen was about Rs 1.80 lakh as the cost of each light was Rs 2,000.

He said PUDA had cleared the budget for the next financial year, but no provision for providing water to parks had been made in the budget. He said he had directed the officials concerned to provide a proper layout plan of the parks as well as the budgetary provisions for each park within two months.

He said when he had visited a park in Sector 70 about four months ago he had asked officials concerned to change a PUDA board which had been put up near the park as it was in a bad shape. No action had been taken in this regard. But now a hurried decision was taken to get a new board prepared which was probably put up last evening. The board had a number of mistakes, including spelling mistakes.

The Deputy Speaker, who started his inspection from the Neighbourhood Park in Phase VI, said injustice was being done to residents of the town by not providing them well-developed parks as they had paid lakhs of rupees in the name of development charges.

He said the progress of the work in connection with the parks would be reviewed every month at meetings which would be convened by the SDM, Mr Mohan Lal Sharma.

Power board gets tough with bribe takers
JE fifth official suspended on graft charge
Our Correspondent

Mohali, March 31
In a bid to curb graft and bring about transparency in the working of the Punjab State Electricity Board, senior officials have caught a junior engineer (JE) red-handed while allegedly accepting a bribe from an industrial unit owner.

The JE was caught in a dramatic way following a “trap” laid by senior officials and a currency note, with the signatures of the Additional Superintending Engineer, Mr K.S. Sidhu, on it, was seized from him. The JE, Mr Surinder Singh Malhi, has been suspended.

The JE is the fifth board official in Mohali division to be suspended on a charge of corruption since August last year. Earlier, Mr Kulwant Singh, JE, Mr Shiv Murti, assistant lineman, were suspended.

It is learnt that Mr Malhi had gone to the factory of Mr P.S. Dhaliwal in the Phase IX industrial area here on March 26 to affix seals on the power meter there. It is alleged that he demanded a bribe for carrying out the work.

Mr Dhaliwal then approached Mr Sidhu and made a complaint against the JE. For immediate verification of the complaint Mr Sidhu constituted a three-member committee comprising SDOs. A Rs 1000 note was initialled by Mr Sidhu and handed over to the complainant to give it to the JE as a bribe. The committee members had been directed to accompany Mr Dhaliwal. The SDOs stopped near the factory and Mr Dhaliwal went inside his industrial unit and met the JE who was waiting there. He handed over the same note to the JE as a bribe. Soon after the SDOs, who were waiting near the factory, entered the unit and confronted the JE. The marked currency note was recovered from him.