HEALTH

Healthy Heart targets young smokers
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 9
Chandigarh has 25 per cent young smokers who run a high risk of cardiovascular diseases like coronary heart diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD), strokes and even cancer in extreme cases.

To arrest the trend of increasing tobacco (one of the risk factors for cardiovascular diseases) intake by the youth of the city, Chandigarh Healthy Heart Action Project has started targeting the risk group in its second year of its implementation. Recently a team of health experts running the project finished training of as many as 190 teachers across various government schools in the city.

From each government school one science and physical education teacher has been imparted training.

Partners in the project- Heath Department, UT, Departments of Community and Internal Medicine, PGI, and WHO, India, — are now also planning to involve all private practitioners of Chandigarh through the Indian Medical Association.

Dr J.S. Thakur from Community Medicine Department of the PGI, said, “We have been successful in handling communicable diseases, but now the bigger challenge is to check non-communicable diseases like cardiovascular. In Chandigarh, more and more youth are now smoking, exposing themselves to dangerous ailments. Haphazard dietary schedules and lack of physical activity worsen the problem. We are preparing an entire nursery of trainers in health institutions as well as schools where our risk population spends most of the time.”

If one takes the statistics into consideration they are grim — 45 per cent of Chandigarh’s population over 30 years of age has hypertension while 7 per cent is suffering from pulmonary heart disease. Absence of fitness opportunities (the city has six lakh vehicles for 30 lakh people) has further compounded the problem.

The PGI has also prepared posters delineating cardiovascular diseases and their causes in this regard.

SPORTS

Speed, accuracy his forte
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 9
“The main stress during my 45 days camp at the Commonwealth Bank of Cricket Academy in Brisbane was on improving the level of fitness”, says the local upcoming fast bowler V.R.V. Singh, who returned to India recently.

He was selected as one of the three cricketers for the prestigious Border-Gavaskar scholarship. V.R.V. Singh had impressed everyone with his speed and accuracy in the last Ranji Trophy season.

“Except the weather, other things like infrastructure, facilities and training programme were almost the same at the academy as we follow at National Cricket Academy, Bangalore”, said V.R.V. Singh.

Talking about the training agenda in Australia, he said: “The training was imparted by four coaches in two schedules of minimum two hours each. They mainly worked on our strong points and did not touch the technical aspects unnecessarily. They told us about our shortcomings through video sessions, thrice a week”.

For the 6.4-foot tall and well-built speedster, controlling line, length and increasing the pace was high on his agenda. Already his speed ranges between 135 and 140 kmph.

Like his role model Waqar Younis of Pakistan, V.R.V. wants to specialise in both swing and pace bowling. He shared the honour with R.P. Singh of Uttar Pradesh and Faiz Faisal of Maharashtra. The report of the performance of the three will be sent to The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which sponsors three promising cricketers for the camp every year.

DAV School shine with 42 medals in table soccer
Tribune News Service

Mohali, August 9
Young table soccer players of D A V Public School, Mohali, dominated the state-level table soccer championship organised by the Punjab State Table Soccer Association at Sangrur by grabbing 42 medals.

The school won 16 gold, 6 silver and 20 bronze medals. While complimenting the players for their excellent performance, Jaya Bhardwaj, Principal of the school, said the school had introduced table soccer this year only and players had potential to achieve more. School coach Balwinder said trials for participation in the coming tournaments in table soccer and table tennis would start soon.

List of the winner: Gold: Preeti (X), Harpreet (X), Gagandeep Singh, Gurkamal Singh and Vasu Kaushal (IX) Maninder, Nisha Sharma, Karan Bajaj, Palki and Pallavi (VII), Surabhi Sood, Preeti Pabal and Jaspreet Singh (VI), Preet Kamal Kaur and Mandeep Kaur (V).

Silver: Tahil Bajaj, Lovjot and Sumeet (X), Gurpreet Chopra (IX), Jagdeep and Anisha (VII).

Bronze: Chamanpreet, Arvinder and Shashank (X), Venktesh, Pragya Mittal, Shikha Sharma (IX), Jaskaran, Harsukaran and Rishab Singh (VIII), Megha Goyal, Maninder Kaur, Karan Bajaj, Avinder and Amandeep Singh (VII), Amandeep (VI).

Swimming tourney from August 18
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 9
The Chandigarh Sports Department will organise Administrator’s Cup Swimming Tournament for sub-junior (under 10 to 12 years), junior (under 14) and senior (above 14 years) at Swimming Pool (Yoga), Sector 23, here, from August 18 to 19.

“The entries along with age proof can be sent to Jasjit Kaur or Paramjit Singh, coaches, till August 17.

Selection trials

The trials to select Chandigarh District Cricket team for Katoch Shield Tournament will be held on August 15 at 3 pm at DAV Senior Secondary School, Sector 8, Chandigarh.