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Does the city have a sports culture?
NASA calling |
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Young World
Luxury ride
7th martyrdom day of Major Raman Dada observed
Alcoholics Anonymous enters 50th year
Families issue public notices to disown addicted kin
Bank officers’ federation flays management
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Does the city have a sports culture?
Sansarpur saga, with its magical success in hockey, made Jalandhar a sports hub. Anuradha Shukla speaks to a cross section of sports personalities to know if the city is living up to its past glory
She credits the former sports wings in schools for making the city as sports hub. On the women sports, she feels that it is highly neglected with the complete absence of academies, wings or any department for developing the skills of women sportspersons. According to her, the sports wings earlier had helped the girls from rural areas in developing their sports skills as these used to help them feel comfortable in coming and staying in hostels and avail facilities to go all out and perform. The total lack of attention or facilities for the female sportspersons is affecting their performance in the states like Punjab. “Merely promoting games for the men and ignoring the section cannot develop sports culture,”she says. The awareness among parents about sports for women is not translated into results because of the lack of facilities that resulted into the sportswomen taking up the sports at the time when it is required to help them get admissions or jobs only, she feels.
“The sports centers, and the former sports wings in schools have served as fertile nursery for sports talent. Over the years, these have created unique sports culture, wherein persons like me have come from remote rural backgrounds and done well,” she says. The city is a positive example of how the sports talent from different regions has been absorbed to make it the hub of sports activities. Parents from rural centers do not hesitate to send their wards to the city, as there are maximum hostel facilities available here, she says. With the reopening of the sports wings in schools and colleges by the state sports department, which were closed for the past few years, the scene is set to liven up once again. The colleges like the HMV have been allotted sports wings and this has greatly enthused the sporting fraternity. The wings will once again provide much needed channel for the sports talent to come up. This time, the government has provided more funds and infrastructure for the wings, which is a welcome step.
He rates Jalandhar the best when it comes to sports, as, he says, the city provides the maximum facilities for any sports activity as compared to other cities of Punjab. The increasing facilities have brought more and more games to the city over the years. Ram Pratap, the athletics guru and the president of the Punjab Coaches’ Association, does not feel bad about the attitude of the youths from the poor and rural families of Punjab, who take to sports to get settled with a good job. He says it only encourages sports. Once in secure jobs, the urge to work for the victory of the country increases, he feels. In athletics, the sports stars like Olympian Manjit Kaur and Rajwinder Kaur have proved their mettle despite the lack of attention for women sports, he says. The intake of sportspersons into the police, the BSF and other government departments also encourages sports activities in the city. He also feels that the so-called “urbanite” games like badminton, table tennis, snooker, and cricket are now drawing children from the urban middle class families in the city.
Being the centre for professional teams like the Punjab Police, BSF, CRPF, and for various colleges like the KMV, HMV, Lyallpur Khalsa and the DAV, and at school level, the city makes the sports’ scene very dynamic, he says. The sports culture lives in the city with various Olympians and Asian-level players residing here, he feels. Jaspal Singh, the noted football coach from Lyallpur Khalsa College, says that the parents from the city, specially from the middle class, are sending their children towards sports, as they think the field is more professional in approach and would help their children get money or jobs easily. The working of sports wings in schools, sports departments of colleges, academies and the clubs adds to the sporting charm of the city, he says. He stresses on the fact that more work needs to be done at the grass-roots level. However, he rues that this is not being done because of faulty government policies. As far as the sports activities are concerned, the city, in his eyes, is the number one. The stalwarts of hockey produced by the villages like Sansarpur add to the sporting charm of the city, he says. However, he feels that swimming and gymnastics are the corner sports here as the city lacks the facilities for these games. Om Prakash, a coach with the Sports College here, has witnessed the sports scene in the city being revived over the past three years. He has been credited with many success stories like Rohit Jamba, Gagandeep Kaur and Chandeep Singh from the city. He feels that the inclination of the people towards the games is more highlighted by the media. The number of Olympians in games like hockey produced by the city also pushes children into these games, he feels. The more conscious parents want their children to adopt sports. On the parents’ attitude, he says that most of the people coming to him for giving training to their children want their wards to be tension-free so that they could adapt to the modern day lifestyles. “The parents here are very conscious of the fact that their children need sporting activity for their all-round development,” he says. There is no dearth of sports talent in the city. A large number of them can be found in any sports ground or during the trials of any sports tournament here, she says. Be it “easy jobs through sports” or “admissions through the sports quota seats”, the considerations for the parents here vary for sending their wards into sports, she says. Parents from the city do not want their children to stick to books to become doctors or engineers, as they feel that mere studies are not going to help their children in any field of life. This is very encouraging. This attitude would surely help in making city youngsters good sportspersons. The games like kabaddi, which is getting cash prizes and recognition, is attracting children, she feels. The increasing competition has also made the sports field more vibrant in the city, where, she feels, the soul of sports lies. The children are coming to the city specially to take up games like hockey, she says. The city surely does have a sports culture and it shows.
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NASA calling
Having once missed the Space Settlement Design Competition organised at Asia-level by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the students of Apeejay School, Jalandhar, have now managed a re-entry through the preliminary international contest.
A team of 12 students would pair up with a team from Whitney High School, Cerritos, California, to participate in the event to be organised at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre, Houston, Texas from July 15 to 17. The 12-member team from the school would include Harleen Kaur Ahuja, Saurabh Chopra, Hardeep Singh, Ankur Mahajan, Rohan Sardana, Anroop Singh Ahluwalia, Kanika Puri, Arvinder Mohan Singh, Ankit Singhal, Mohit Thukral, Aseem Handa and Varun Ahuja. Mr Emmanuel Ratnaraj, their teacher, would be accompanying the students to Texas to guide them all the way. He said the team of 12 Apeejay students, along with another 12 from California school, would be representing a supposed company and each member would be given a designation. He said the students would be given some history and asked to design a community on the planet Mars according to the requirements defined by some presumed customer on July 15. “The students would then be asked to present it on July 16 as a briefing to a panel of judges. There would also be a question-answer round from judges,” he said.
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Young World The annual day of Kendriya Vidyalaya No.1 was organised here on Wednesday. Brig B.B. Patil, Chairman of the Vidyalaya Managing Committee and Commander 91 Sub Area, was the chief guest. His wife, Ms Aruna Patil, President AWWA 91 Sub Area, was the guest of honour. A colourful programme of dance, songs and skits was presented on the occasion. It began with vandana. Tiny tots participated in a welcome song. Dance item on the number “Rut aa gayi re” was performed by students of the middle section.
The upcoming artistes presented a rainbow dance. Rajasthani and Haryanvi dances were also showcased. The programme concluded with bhangra by senior boys. Meanwhile, the students of KV Suranussi also celebrated their annual day on Wednesday. Col R.R. Handa, Commandant 223 ABOD, was the chief guest. Ms Meena Kulshresth, Principal, read the annual report. A skit titled “Bhor” presented by the students won much applause. The programme culminated with bhangra presentation. Calligraphy contest A calligraphy competition was organised at Seth Hukum Chand SD Public Senior Secondary School, Sangal Sohal, on Tuesday. The students used different techniques in writing alphabets, as they participated in the contest. The winners, including Jaspreet Singh, Ajaypreet, Tushar, Jatin Kapoor, Rahul, Khushboo, Neha, Arzoo, Priyanka, Ayush, Tanisha, Harsimran Kaur, Shivani Gulati, were give prizes. Ms Manju Arora, Principal, congratulated the winners. Eco club To spread awareness on hazards of using polythene bags, the primary section students of Apeejay School, Model Town, launched an environment club. Ms Gursharan and Ms Amandeep, both teachers, told the students how the polybags were ruining the environment by causing damage to the precious “Mother Earth”. The students and the staff vowed to refrain from using polythene bags. The Headmistress, Ms Aneela Kinder, distributed jute bags to the teachers for daily use. Beach party A beach party was organised by Delhi Public School for its pre-primary students last week. A replica of beach was created with sand and water pool to give the children an idea of the concept. The children dressed in colourful swimming costumes and sun shades enjoyed a cool dip in the water pool. They jumped, danced and splashed water on one another. They were also taken to a private farm house where they were served fruit chat made out of fresh summer fruit. The school also organised an inter-house English poetry contest for Classes VI to IX. The contest was divided into two categories. While the participants from Classes VI to VIII recited poems of classical poets, the students from Classes IX to XI recited poems of contemporary poets. In group A, Mannat Sandhu, Karan Datta and Joy Talwar were declared the winners. In Group B, Alpana Saha, Arshdeep Khera and Aasheen Bhanot won the prizes. In group C, Simranpreet, Suvashri Dhar and Manrup Chaudhary were declared the winners.
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Luxury ride Are you ready for a world of luxury transport? Hiring a classy stretch limousine or top-of-the-line S Class sedan from Mercedes has become easier, with one of the leading car rental companies, Hertz, setting up shop in the vicinity of Phagwara.
Carzonrent India Private Ltd — the sole franchisee of Hertz International — will offer a range of Hertz’s global services to travellers, including self-drive, chauffeur drive, operating lease and fleet management services, said the franchisee’s spokesperson. Hertz India has a fleet of 850 cars and operates at 25 locations in cities across the country. For its Punjab operations, which is being controlled from Jalandhar, Hertz has forged an alliance with Chandigarh-based car rental firm, Jhajj Rent a Car. Hertz India CEO Rajiv K Vij said, “The cars will be certified and benchmarked as per Hertz’s global standards and chauffeurs would be trained by our corporate trainers.” Having launched operations in India four years ago, Hertz’s has achieved an annual turnover of Rs 72 crore, which is way above what it clocked in the first year of its operations — Rs 30 lakh. The company plans to double its fleet to 1,700 by the year-end. It has imported a Ford stretch limousine from Belgium for the Jalandhar and its surrounding areas. The limousine could be yours for 24 hours if you are willing to shell out Rs 22,000! Ashok Vashisht, who heads Hertz India’s operations in the north, said, “The IT boom in Chandigarh and Punjab will help the car rentals business grow in the Doaba belt also.” “The self-driven segment will thrive because of demand from NRIs. We are also betting on lavish Punjabi weddings to generate revenues,” he added. Mr Vij said that while the car rental segment was still dominated by the unorganised sector, the entry of a global brand like Hertz into Punjab had given people the assurance of quality, reliability and transparency in product offering and pricing. He said there were over four lakh cars plying as taxis in the country, out of which more than two lakh were operating illegally. “The organised sector accounts for a mere 6,000 vehicles that yield a revenue of Rs 400 crore. There’s a lot of fragmentation in the industry,” Mr Vij said. Mr Ramesh Jhajj, who’s partnering Hertz in Punjab, said, “This is a great opportunity for us to give Punjab a truly world-class car rental experience.” “We will be opening support offices at Ludhiana and Nawanshahr,” he added, while talking to Jalandhar Plus. Hertz operates out of 7,400 locations in over 150 countries with a fleet of over seven lakh vehicles. Around the world, India included, no car in the Hertz fleet is more than three years old.
— TNS
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7th martyrdom day of Major Raman Dada observed
To observe the seventh martyrdom day of Major Raman Dada of the 11 Sikh Regiment, Shiv Sena garlanded the statue of the martyr erected at a chowk named after the martyr.
The family members of the martyr were also invited on the occasion. Rich tributes were paid to the martyr on the occasion. His supreme sacrifice was lauded. Mr Davinder Lakahnpal, a state representative of the party, said that Major Raman Dada was killed in Assam by the assailants on May 2, 1999. The brave Major had gunned down seven terrorists there.
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Surfing for a song
The idea of listening to a song of your choice through FM radio or cable TV has now become a passé. The latest fad is to do the same through the Internet while sitting in your office or home. This has become possible through Rangla Radio, a concept based on radio through net, introduced by a local resident last month.
Rangla Radio has an added advantage, as it allows listeners to choose from a variety of categories and the latest albums primarily in Hindi and Punjabi, classical songs based on ragas, music played by string instruments and even religious hymns such as shabads and bhajans, said Mr Amarjit Singh, the proprietor. You could even listen to the live 19-hour transmission from Sri Harmandar Sahib while sitting anywhere in the world, besides listening to the Ramayana and other scriptures, including Bible and Quran, with a click or two on the site, he added. The site users have to first get themselves registered. Requests for songs were sent through e-mails and the response was fast, Mr Amarjit Singh said. “We are planning to set up our own studio in Urban Estate, Phase-II, where we will also have jockeys who would interact with the site users and play the songs on their requests,” he added. Rangla Radio is currently also sponsoring various activities of schools and colleges to spread its reach. The pictures clicked during the events are then posted on the site and available even a month after the event. Various religious and social events are also being covered live by the site. “We will telecast the live shabad kirtan programme from Gurdwara Singh Sabha, Model Town, on May 6, 7 on the occasion of the martyrdom day of Guru Arjan Dev,” said Mr Amarjit Singh. Rangla Radio had taken most concepts from the US and was trying to localise them, he explained. “I was basically dealing in home loans till the last few months. I had gone to the US, where I met my uncle who had been associated with a similar project for quite some time. Reaching home, I thought of starting the same project in Punjab,” he added. “I started hunting for people specialised in different jobs like programming, web designing, site updating and doing technical or networking operations, writing the script and photography. I finally formed a team of 16 men who agreed to work for me. We then started developing the site, ranglaradio.com,” he explained.
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Alcoholics Anonymous enters 50th year
Alcoholics Anonymous today enters 50th year of its inception in May 5, 1957.
Incidentally, the World Health Organisation has declared alcoholism the third biggest disease affecting the people from all over the world. The first two biggest diseases are heart diseases and cancer. Long back in 1935, two sober alcoholics met. One was Bill Willson (William Griffith Wilson), a stockbroker based at New York and the other was Dr Bob Smith (Robert Holbrook Smith), a surgeon from Ohio. They both decided to keep trying in order to protect their own sobriety and hence became the co-founders of the Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.). Millions of A.A. members, since then, have been visiting alcoholics willing to get rid of this addiction. The spiritually-oriented community of “help-one-another”, now called Alcoholics Annonymous, is working at International level in groups. The primary purpose of the members of A. A. is to stay sober and help other alcoholics do the same. Following the footsteps of A.A., many recovery groups came into existence namely Gamblers Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Smokers Anonymous and Sexaholics Anonymous, among others all around the world. Now a days more than one thousand groups are working in India and in Punjab — Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Amritsar Batala, Dasuya, Hoshiarpur, Ludhiana and Nangal. Besides, its capital Chandigarh is also on the map of A.A. with its Helpline number 09417837531. A.A. literature describes a difference between an “alcoholic” and a “problem drinker”, claiming that unlike a ‘problem drinker’, an alcoholic may drink alcohol, but retains the ability to stop or moderate his or her drinking. Alcoholics have an incurable disease rendering them unable to moderate their consumption of alcohol. A.A. states that only the individual themselves can determine whether they are an alcoholic. As per the A.A. literature, the members are encouraged to “tread 12-step recovery programme”, designed to help the alcoholic achieve a spiritual, emotional and mental state conducive to lasting sobriety. Even members with decades of continuous sobriety still go to meetings regularly. Though there is no compulsion or requirement to attend the meetings of A.A. for the members, they regard attendance at A.A. meetings as important, inform a member of A.A. at Kapurthala, when asked. Members may attend as few or as many meetings as they wish, as frequently or infrequently as they like. The recovery programme is one-day
programme. It is for ‘today’ only. Means one has to commit himself or herself not to pick the first drink for one day. And the commitment goes on for every day. Alcoholics Anonymous define the alcoholism as a progressive disease from which the alcoholic is suffering and cannot be cured. So recovering alcoholic has no option, but to completely abstain from alcohol. No official membership or attendance records are kept at any level in A.A. to make it sure that the identity of the member remains
annonymous for ever. However, there are annually published estimates which are available through AAs headquarters in New York City, known as “GSO” (General Service Office).
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Families issue public notices to disown addicted kin
Issuing public notices to disown drug addict family members is the new trend among the families of the addicts in this area to avoid police harassment, as the addicts are most of the time involved in both minor as well as serious crimes.
The emotional and financial drain on addicts’ families is most of the time exhausting and it builds up frustration, fear, resentment and anger. So now, a large number of families are simply disowning the addicts, giving up hopes of them ever improving. Every day, vernacular newspapers carry public notices wherein the families make claims of disowning their addict sons. Though, this method does not carry any legal binding, but for the distraught families, this is the most prevalent method. These notices are published on the basis of a simple affidavit by the family head. “If the police approaches the family of the addict for latter’s involvement in any crime, by showing these public notices, the family always makes claim of having no relation with the addict. This way, most of the time these notices help the family members avoiding harassment at the hands of the police,” told an oath commissioner in local courts, who attested many such affidavits. “We’re all aware that the drugs can destroy those who’re hooked on it, but the damage does not end there. The families of the addicts go through their own hell and in some cases, disintegrate completely,” Mr Rajiv Ahir, Kapurthala Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), said. Former Phagwara City police station SHO, Mr Nirmal Singh, narrated a few incidents where the parents of the addicts came to him with tears streaming down their contorted face, saying: “Please put my son behind bar. With his being in lockup, the situation will be more comfortable for us, as we can’t bear seeing them dying slow death with drugs.” Talking about his only son, a farmer told The Tribune about his son, who took TV set, bicycle and even utensils, everything he could lay his hand on, and sold them to get his dose of drugs. He is no longer welcome to the house, he tells. “I have given a public notice, disconnecting my family from all acts of omissions of my son,” he said. In order to survive, one has to develop a strong sense of gravity and self-esteem and not be attached like a pendulum to the addict’s life. “I believe an addict left to his own devices will use drugs to death, so it’s very important not to give up on the addict and keep trying to intervene for his rehabilitation,” Mr Ahir said.
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Bank officers’ federation flays management A meeting of the executive committee of the All India Central Bank Officers’ Federation was organised during which they alleged that their management had adopted a totally “biased attitude” towards the issues raised by the federation. “The biased attitude is reflected by the management’s attack on trade union rights, attempts to de-unionise the officers, indiscriminate disciplinary actions, disproportionate punishments, unbearable pressure on officers and attempts to victimise the activists,” the federation members alleged. — TNS
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