HEALTH

Get infection status of donors, blood banks told
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 23
To put a stop at the repeated circulation of infected blood from diseased donors to patients, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has asked various blood banks to get the infection status of voluntary donors after taking their consent.

The recent action plan of the ministry, circulated among various blood banks and nodal agencies recently, has made it mandatory for the banks to get a consent form filled up from the donors beforehand with regard to HIV, hepatitis B and C, malaria and syphilis.

This is seen as a major shift from the existing practice, where the donors are never informed about their being testing positive for any one of the above diseases, only their blood used to be discarded.

The directions of the ministry read, “Apart from destroying the blood unit in accordance with the existing procedure, the donor shall be requested to visit the blood bank after informing him/ her that some of the results are not conclusive and need to be confirmed.”

However, the policy makers have sought proper training of the blood bank staff in this regard to maintain secrecy regarding the facts.

SPORTS

Ravisher upsets top seed Jaivardhan
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, June 23
Ravisher Singh created a flutter in the under-12 boys section when he defeated top seed Jaivardhan Gupta in the pre-quarterfinals of The Fort Ramgarh Total Tennis championship being played at the Total Tennis Academy, YMCA, Sector 11, here. In other events, however, seeds did not face difficulty in surging ahead.

Earlier, Jaivardhan Gupta was sailing for the comfortable victory against his unseeded opponent Ravisher Singh. At 6-5, serving for the match, it seemed to be a routine victory for the top seed, but Ravisher had something different in his mind. He started playing aggressively to break the serve of Jaivardhan and bring the score at tie-breaker at 6-6. Then in the tie break once again the score was levelled at 6-6(6-6). A long forehand from the top seed gave his unseeded opponent, a chance to serve for the match. Finally, Ravisher drubbed Jaivardhan 7-6 (8-6).

The other players who made it to the quarterfinals in boys under-12 category were Jivtesh Kang, Akshit Bhatia, Amit Chauhan, Garry S. Amor, Kunaldeep, Fateh and the second-seed Samin Bhargav. Samin had to sweat it out to beat his practice partner Sonam Phunstok by saving two match points at 7-6(7-5).

In the boys under-10 category quarterfinals, all seeded players made it to the last eight with ease.

The following are the results:

Boys under-10 (PQF): Samin Bhargav b Jaideep Sidhu 7-0; Pragun Vinayak b Kunal Kapoor 7-5; Karan Kapoor b Nikhil Kaswan 7-2; Rishabh Dev b Harmandeep Singh 7-0; Harmeet Singh b Ashish Kumar 7-4; Prabhdeep Singh b Surya Mittal 7-4; Daksh Bassi b Aditya Bansal 7-2; and Nishchay Rawal b Kritharth 7-0.

Boys under-12 (PQF): Ravisher Singh b Jaivardhan Gupta 7-6(8-6); Jivtesh S.Kang b Harpreet Singh 7-0; Akshit Bhatia b Dhruv Walia 7-2; Amit Chauhan b Vivek Mehta 7-0 ; Garry S.Amor b Vivek 7-0; Kunaldeep b Kartikey Kashyap 7-0; Fateh S Ladhar beat Gagandeep S.Gill 7-3; and Samin Bhargav b Sonam Phunstok 7-6 (7-5).

Boys under-14 (PQF): Karanvir Singh b Amardeep Singh 7-5; Balwinder Singh b Sunil 7-0; Jaivardhan Gupta b Sonam Phunstok 7-6 (7-5); Akshat Joshi b Akshay Chopra 7-2; Amit Chauhan b Rajwinder Grewal 7-0; Vishal Suri b Fateh S. Ladhar 7-4; Ishaan Thukral b Garry S Amor 7-6 (7-3) ; and Abhairaj Singh b Nitin 7-4.

Boys under-14 doubles (QF): Abhairaj / Sidharth b Arjun Khanna / Shiven 6-0; Nitin/ Bhavneet bSonam / Jaivardhan 6-1; Karan/ Brinder b Ishaan / Fateh 6-4; Akshat / Akshay got walk over against Aman / Vishal.

Girls under-12 (first round): Prabhamrit Kaur b Pallak 6-1; Arpan Chahal b Jasleen Kaur 6-3; and Shreya Jain b Sanya Kansal 6-3;

Girls under-14 (first round) : Shilpa Naruka got walk over against Arshie Khosla; Indu b Elisha 6-1; Manvi Talwar b Mehak Thakur 6-4; Sunita b Ashna Bali 6-0; Gauri Sharma got walk over against Aashita Kaushik; Vibha Sharma b Divya Sharma 6-5(6-4); and Tanvi Goel b Shreya Jain 6-0.

Cricket academy at St John’s
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 23
The Chandigarh Cricket Association, affiliated to the Punjab Cricket Association, is going to start a cricket academy at St John’s High School, Sector 26, Chandigarh.

Trials for selecting under-13 and under 15 players will be held on June 24 at 3 pm on the school complex. Interested players must reach the venue for the trials with their kits and birth certificates.

The association will rope in international players and coaches, including Chetan Sharma Maninder Singh, Mohinder Amarnath, Yash Pal Sharma, Kapil Dev, Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Mongia and D.P. Azad, to give tips to young players.

Canara Bank in semis

Canara Bank defeated Nivia cricket club by 35 runs in the ninth Prudential Cricket Cup played at Sector 27. Canara Bank elected to bat first and got a good start. Rampal and Balwinder scored 52 runs in 5 overs. Later, Charandass played a sensible knock. He scored 41 runs. Canara Bank scored 151 for 9 in 20 overs. The Nivia Cricket Club were bowled out for 116.

Brief scores: Canara Bank — 151 for 9 in 20 overs (Rampal Raghav 31, Charandass 41, Vikas 21, Om 3 for 21, Manjeet 3/25, Pushpinder 2 for 13); Nivia Cricket Club — 116 all out (Pushpinder 17, Ankur 18, Om 17 Krishna Murthy 2 for 24, Barinder 3/14, Charandass 2 for 25).

Indians should improve hitting, say US baseball coaches
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, June 23
The visiting USA baseball coaches have expressed satisfaction over the perfomance of the Indian women baseball team who are attending the national coaching camp at the Panjab University grounds. Tom Dedin and Bill Thomas said this at a press conference held in the presence of the office-bearers of the Baseball Federation of India (BFI) .

When asked whether the Indian women would make it to the World Cup to be held in Canada later this year, the coaches were little apprehensive of the same but said if they play to their optimum potential, a berth in the World Cup could become a certainity. Bill Thomas said the 25 Indian women probables, who were part of the camp, and another 25 coaches were being given training in physical fitness.

Mr P.C. Bhardwaj, secretary- general, BFI, admitted that the Indian players still need to improve their hitting and the federation would shortly import a pitching machine, likely from the Asian Baseball Federation.

Mr Bhardwaj said a plan was on the anvil to invite foreign trainers to India with assistance from the International Baseball Federation. He said these coaches could be hired for three months. Another plan was to introduce a prize money tournament where winners could fetch as much as Rs 1.5 lakh, he added.

On the selection of the Indian women team for the qualifying tournament in Japan, he said no talented player would be left out for want of money.

They have approached the Union Government to give the necessary clearance to the Indian team.

Indian roller skating team 4th in 10-nation meet
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, June 23
Indian roller skaters secured fourth place in the 10th Asian Roller Skating Championship concluded last week in Akita, Japan. Teams of 10 nations took part while Australia was the special guest representing the Oceania region. These countries were: Japan, Chinese Taipei, Korea, India, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Iran.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Inderpal Singh, founder member of the Roller Skating Federation of India said 56 roller skaters took part in three disciplines — artistic, speed and roller hockey.

Indian women roller hockey team finished third. The team comprised Sonali Bhaghla, Smriti Chandel, Yashdeep Kaur, Shakun Salwan, Japneet, Renuka, Chandita Kamboj, Suruchi Chandel, Ritu Nagpal and Asrita.

In artistic event, Natasha Shah claimed silver medal, while Anup Yama bagged bronze medal.

Anup and Natasha also won bronze medals in pairs artistic event. In speed event, Akash Prakash, Ravi Kiran and Patil S. Balwant finished runners-up in the 5,000-m relay race. Indian team was accompanied by three foreign coaches — Carlos Luege (speed), Sutcliffe Jaison (artistic) and Baraldi Aldo (hockey).

ADMINISTRATION

Vajralingam likely to be new FS
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 23
Dr G. Vajralingam, is likely to be the new Finance Secretary of the Chandigarh Administration. His appointment will be made after the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) accepts the recommendations of the Chandigarh Administration and gets it ratified from the Prime Minister’s Office.

Sources said the name of Dr Vajralingam had been cleared by the UT Administration and would now be forwarded to the MHA.

If, Dr Vajralingam, who is a 1986 batch Punjab cadre IAS officer, is selected then this will be his second stint as UT Finance Secretary. He had earlier joined as FS in Chandigarh on July 17, 1998. Within a year’s time he was repatriated. He has also worked here as Joint Secretary Finance. In Punjab he has worked as Secretary Expenditure and also in the Punjab Small Industries and Export Corporation.

On Monday the Adviser to the UT Administrator, Mr Lalit Sharma, had met the three IAS officers from Punjab, who were in the race to be UT Finance Secretary. The Adviser talked to the three officers separately.

The panel sent from Punjab had the names of Mr Jagpal Singh Sandhu of the 1983 batch, Dr G. Vajralingam of the 1986 batch and Mr S.K Sandhu of the 1987 batch, the sources confirmed. One of them will replace the present FS, Mr Karan A. Singh a 1984 batch officer, whose tenure ends in the first week of July.