Admission panic grips parents
Shivani Bhakoo and Asha Ahuja

Ludhiana, December 29
Panic has gripped parents whose wards are seeking admission to leading schools here this year. Though kindergarten teachers warn such parents not to transfer their anxiety to the children, the worried parents are leaving no stone unturned to prepare the child for the “big interviews”. Others are busy looking for right “approach” for getting admission to prestigious schools.

Some leading schools are through with the interview process while interviews for Sacred Heart Convent Senior Secondary School, Sarabha Nagar, are from January 6 to 10 and in Kundan Vidya Mandir, interviews are from January 2 to 6. The interviews for Sacred Heart, Randhir Singh Nagar, are expected to be held in the middle of January.

Three-and-a-half-year old son Aditya has to take admission in LKG. His father said, “I have filled in the form of just one school here. My wife and I are the products of the same school and we want to send him there. I am sure that he will be through too”.

A city based couple said they were prepared to “donate generously” for getting their child admitted to a particular school. “Those who have donated have succeeded. After all, the child has to study for at least 10 years in the school and we are prepared to give anything the management wants”.

Ms Vandita Rai, Principal of Sparkle Nursery School, Sarabha Nagar, said getting admission to a renowned school had become a status symbol in Ludhiana. She said it was unfortunate that people were bothered about schools rather than quality education.

“Parents pressurise children very much, which is bad. The pressurised kids cannot come out well in interviews as their innocence is suppressed. We advise parents not to use forceful tactics, but they refuse to listen. A majority of the parents want to send their children to established schools, which have nominal fee structure”, added Vandita.

A teacher at a local school here said some schools were through with interviews. “Obviously they will be choosing the best lot. Some rules should be made to put an end to the panic. Interviews and declaration of results should be decided by the district administration and schools should be told to follow the rules”, she said.

Moved by friend’s death, old classmates set up welfare fund
Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, December 29
Moved by the death of one of their classmates due to kidney failure and lack of funds, all students of the 1996 B.Sc. Agri (Hons) batch of the College of Agriculture, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), who joined at Sukhdev Singh Bhavan of PAU, decided to set up a common welfare fund, in which they could deposit money, which could be used by anyone of them at the time of emergency.

The batchmates met at a function here recently. Forty batchmates joined this meet, who were presently serving as Assistant Professors or Research Fellows and doing their doctorates at PAU, serving in multinational companies, doing doctoral degree at various universities in the USA and Canada and settled in foreign countries.

The main purpose of the meet was to establish a platform to keep in touch with others and for doing something for a common cause, the importance of which was felt when one of their batchmates had to suffer for acute kidney and pancreas infection and died in October. Although a handsome collection could be arranged from the batchmates settled in India and abroad, a number of batchmates remained unaware of this incident.

Now a joint account had been established in the name of the batch, where they could deposit their contributions from anywhere and this money would be spent for the common cause. Batchmates were also planning to start a scholarship for needy students studying at the PAU.

The other decision at the meet was to hold a regular meeting of the batchmates on December 25 every year.

‘Parents’ cooperation needed to curb copying’
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, December 29
To stop copying — the biggest problem during examinations — the parents should extend full cooperation to the teachers. Education helps in the development of an individual and thus the children who get a chance to study are very fortunate.

This was stated by Ms Manjit Kaur, Deputy Education Officer (S), while presiding over the annual prize distribution function of Nightingale Public School, New Shimla Puri.

She said copying reduces the children's incentives to learn on their own and make them lose self confidence. She also explained in details education plans of the government, including schemes under the Sarv Sikhya Abhiyan.

NSS camp concludes
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, December 29
RS Model Senior Secondary School, Shastri Nagar, and BCM School held a 10-day NSS camp. The camp was held at RS school and it concluded today. A volunteer shared the experiences of the 10-day camp with the audience. The winning students were given away prizes.

COURTS

Recall 2005
Year of Lok Adalats at District Courts
Rajneesh Lakhanpal

Ludhiana, December 29
The year 2005 would be remembered in the judicial history of the city as the year when large number of judges, especially from the Supreme Court, came under one roof for the first time for participating in the National Level Lok-Adalat held here on April 10.

The city's perfect hoisting of the mega event has set an example at the national level on how the Lok Adalats can be organised with such a success.

The Lok Adalat was held by the Legal Services Authority under the supervision of its Chairman, Mr Harbans Lal, District and Sessions Judge, Ludhiana. It provided relief to thousands of litigants ailing for justice for several years with the settlement of more than 10,000 cases.

After several years, the District Legal Services Authority organised an impressive seminar in rural area Hambran to educate the villagers about free legal services provided by the authority on the occasion of the Legal Services Day. Earlier, the seminars were organised in the Court Complex where every year lawyers and judicial staff used to attend the same with a very low participation.

Seven more courts were set up in the city to meet the load of pending cases. Six of those have started functioning and one newly appointed Judicial Officer would start function soon after completing training. However, the strength of the law officers has not been increased. Even the Fast Track Court is still without the Presiding Officer for one month. With neither the term of the presiding officer extended nor any new officer appointed, the litigants were a harassed lot.

The possession of the Bar room and library, installation of two elevators in the Lawyers Chamber Complex and the computerisation of the library proved useful for the legal fraternity. However, encroachments by several typist, notary public and stamp vendors in the corridors of the complex remained painful for the passersby. The complaints made by several lawyers did not yield any results.

A large number of theft incidents in and outside the judicial complex irked the lawyers and judicial staff. The thieves also targeted the lawyer's chamber where photostat machines and computers were installed, forcing the DBA to affix gates on all outlets with security personnel.

Quite a substantial number of scooters belonging to lawyers were stolen from the parking outside the complex. The thieves did not even spare the cycles from the parking reserved for the judicial staff.

Lack of security arrangements in the complex was another low point of the year. It led to several clashes between different groups and about 10 undertrials even escaped from the judicial custody.

The cleanliness condition remained poor in the complex particularly on upper floors due to lack of adequate number of sweepers. Bakshikhana proved to be a source of nuisance. The passersby and the employees sitting near Bakshikhana had no other alternative to listen the filthy language, abuses hurled by the undertrials. It also proved headache for the local police.

The influential political personalities — Mr Surinder Dawar, Parliamentary Secretary, Power and Housing, and Mr Avtar Singh Karimpuri, state president of the BSP — got embroiled in litigation and secured bail from local courts in different defamation cases.

The former state Deputy Speaker, Mr Satpal Gosain, was also summoned by a local court to face the trial in a defamation case filed against him by his bete noire Dawar. A defamation case was filed against Congress leader Jagdish Tytler by a lawyer of the Supreme Court here.

One young lawyer was brutally murdered and one lawyer is behind the bars on the charges of having murdered his munshi — Tony.

The end of the year witnessed a change of guard in the District Bar Association. The Dhanda group stormed back in power after sitting two years in opposition. Its candidate Naval Kishore Chibber was elected president in the annual elections held this month. The Balwinder Goel group suffered a setback in Bar politics. However, they succeeded in retaining the post of secretary by ensuring the victory of Rajneesh Gupta of their camp.

HEALTH

Active social, physical life is mantra of good health
Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, December 29
Longevity has been a spectacular achievement of our time. The age structure of India's population shows an unmistakable trend toward an increasing proportion of the elderly. The country's population in the age group of 60 years and above is increasing more rapidly than the population as a whole.

From 24.71 million in 1961, the population of people over 60 years of age has risen to 43.98 million in 1981 and 55.3 million in 1991 with the present figure at around 81 million.

As people have a longer life span, non-communicable diseases are more likely to increase with the direct result that the diagnostic and treatment procedures and over all health care expenditure will increase substantially.

According to Dr Paramjit Singh Khurana, Consultant Neuro-Psychiatrist and drug de-addiction specialist at Guru Teg Bahadur Charitable Hospital here, the elderly people must follow the regimen of an active social and physical life to keep away from age-related diseases such as dementia or Alzheimer's disease which could spell trouble not only for the victims but also for their family members, responsible for looking after them.

Giving more details about the most common neurotic disorders of the elderly persons, he said dementia was an illness which caused changes in a person's memory, intellect and personality. The illness usually started gradually with deterioration occurring over several years. Later there might be other problems such as changes in behaviour, including wandering and personal neglect. Thinking and speech became restricted, physical health problems could develop and a person could become bedridden and incontinent.

Similarly, the Alzheimer's disease, which was the most common form of dementia, could in its middle and late stages be also presented with behavioral symptoms and personality changes. Most cases of Alzheimer's disease were caused by a complex combination of genetic factors and increasing age. Lower education levels and serious head injuries were also major risk factors for this disease.

"Although Alzheimer's disease is one of the most feared medical condition in older adults, it occurs in only about 3 per cent of people between the ages of 65 and 74. The incidence then goes up until nearly half of those over 85 years of age may be affected."

Dr Khurana observed that although some memory loss was normal as one aged, a defining characteristic of Alzheimer's disease was significant, progressive loss of memory, judgment, and other mental skills. Eventually this could limit the ability to handle everyday activities. Behavioral symptoms might include anxiety, irritability, restlessness, aggression, and wandering and tended to vary widely from patient to patient with impaired judgment often being a serious concern.

Advising the elderly people and their family members not to jump to conclusions before an expert opinion from medical professionals was sought and definite diagnosis made, he said at the same time it should never be assumed that poor judgment, difficulty in concentrating, disorientation, or memory loss was normal. "Be sure to tell your doctor about any symptoms you notice. Some causes of these problems are reversible, such as anemia or drug interactions. In other patients, symptoms may be a result of treatable conditions, such as depression, thyroid problems, certain vitamin deficiencies, and Parkinson's disease."

Dr Khurana said while at present there was no way to cure Alzheimer's disease nor were there any effective means to prevent the condition, the family members of the victim could do a great deal to minimise the patient's stresses and hazards. "A calm environment and structured daily routine seem to work best. However, keep in mind that these patients should be gently encouraged to help themselves as much as possible in order to keep their brain active and functioning."

He further suggested that the patients with neurotic disorders should be engaged in intellectually stimulating activities, they be made to stay socially active, eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly, avoid tobacco and excessive alcohol consumption. Adequate care ought to be taken to keep the blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol levels of the patients under control.

55 units of blood donated
Our Correspondent

Samrala, December 29
A blood donation camp was organised by N.S.S. volunteers of Government Senior Secondary School Ghungrali Sikhan and Malwa College, Bondli, Samrala, at Government Senior Secondary School, Ghungrali Sikhan, in which 55 units of blood were donated.

Thirty students of Malwa College and 25 school students donated blood. The college Principal highlighted the importance of blood donation. During the second session, a lecture on drug abuse was delivered. 

Anti-drug campaign
Our Correspondent

Khanna, December 29
A anti-drug campaign and a chetna rally were organised at Ram Garh Elementary School here. The volunteers of the mission had campaigned in more than 40 schools.