Dehradun, June 14
Grappling with the ever-increasing demand for blood that cannot be artificially manufactured, blood donation is the only way that can help save somebody’s life. But, it is the motivators working tirelessly who hold the key in motivating non-donors to take the first step and encourage them to donate again and again.

The successful journey of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) Blood Bank, Uttarakhand, could not have been possible but for a team of social motivators who are forever scouting voluntary blood donors and take upon themselves the challenge of turning “shirkers” into valuable donors.

“There are several misconceptions about blood donation that people usually harbour. The hospital equipment, prick of the needle, etc, all these factors may discourage donors, but the motivators address all these problems before hand. We advise prospective donors that to stay healthy and prevent heart problems, regular blood donation is the safest method giving them immunity,” said VS Bhardwaj, Manager, Social Marketing, IMA Blood Bank, and motivator himself.

The social motivators team of the blood bank do not shy away from reiterating that life is measured in units and they get the maximum satisfaction after delivering these “units of life” to the needy thereby establishing a bond with them.

“When tragedy strikes, it is this vital life-saving liquid that is urgently required. It is present in all of us, yet may be in short supply. No wonder then blood banks that distribute little units of life are forever grappling with the enormity of supplying blood that is ever increasing,” said Pratyush Vaishnav, Project Coordinator of the Social Marketing of Voluntary Blood Donations in Uttarakhand, supported by the Sir Ratan Tata Trust and started in 2008, and motivator.

In the case of Meena Panwar, a resident of remote Tipri village in Tehri Garhwal who suffered haemorrhage while delivering a baby girl, the IMA Blood Bank not only saved two lives, but the social motivators brought a major change in her perception. Now, a grateful Meena, is part of the blood campaign.

To make blood donation a pleasant experience for the donors, the atmosphere at the IMA Blood Bank that has been accorded the status of a Regional Blood Transfusion Centre (RBTC) is at once welcoming, whatever doubts the donors may have are addressed. “It is the feel-good factor that works here. Rest assured even first timers take it easy and return after six months to donate yet again. For us it is all the more rewarding, when they return with friends,” said VS Bhardwaj.

This year till May, IMA Blood Bank has undertaken 58,163 donations and 882 camps and there is a requirement of 100 units per day of red cells around Dehradun.

Now, they have task cut out, as they focus their attention on hill districts where the blood donation movement is hampered due to absence of blood banks and accessibility.

The total requirement of blood in the state as per conservative estimates would be around 70,000-80,000 units per year, i.e. 1 per cent of the population of Uttarakhand. Figuring among low performing states, voluntary blood donations have only now picked up in the state, but a lot of ground work has to be covered before the voluntary blood donation activity picks up in the hill districts.

Dehradun, June 14
They share kinship with several persons irrespective of caste, creed or religion and the Uttarakhand State Aids Control Society (USACS) together with the Blood Safety honoured them today on World Blood Donation Day.

Gaurav Wadhwa Manoj Bakhsi

In all 21 donors and more than 22 organisations and institutions were honoured at a function at the Doon Hospital. Leading the pack Yogesh Agarwal, B-positive blood group, working with the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped (NIVH) and who has donated blood 90 times, said: “I began donating at the age of 18 years and have formed a special bond with the receivers of my blood and it is a great feeling to have blood relationship through the medium of transfusion. I feel healthy and fit every time I donate and I am aiming at 180 donations.” Agarwal donates four times in a year and has managed to motivate his niece to join in the exercise.

While Dr AS Uniyal, having A-positive blood group and a public relations officer with the National Social Service (NSS), became a vegetarian after he began donating blood 10 years back. Setting an example he has also been instrumental in motivating donors.

“My exercise in motivating members of the Muslim community has borne fruits, first timers like Amar Ali, Taufiq Ahmed have also been instrumental in motivating other members from his community,” said Uniyal. He aims to motivate and undertake 3,600 donations this year.

Dr Sangeeta Agarwal from Roorkee with B-positive blood group, who has donated 10 times so far, said a large number of women turned up for donations during campaigns, “but most are rejected due to low haemoglobin count. They need to be motivated to prepare for donations by focusing on their diet”.

Another donor, just 18 years of age and with A-positive blood group, Gaurav Bhatt of Pine Hall School, a first time donor who came with his parents, wants to continue donating blood. He said it had been tough motivating his friends to do the same. “I must tell you, my sister Garima too has donated blood and we are following in the footsteps of our father who started the campaign in the family,” he said

Earlier in her address, Dr Meenakshi Uniyal, Joint Director of the Blood Safety, said there had been an improvement in the voluntary blood donation in the state that was at 67 per cent and the state aimed to achieve the target of 80 per cent in the coming years.

A small play was put up by the Pindar Ghati Sanskriti Samoh. “We had especially invited the group to spread the message of voluntary blood donation,” said Uma Prakash, Joint Director, IEC, USACS.

At a function held at Indian Medical Association Blood Bank, 27 voluntary blood donors were honoured who have undertaken blood donations 10 or more times. They include Gaurav Wadhwa, Jagrit Goel and Manoj Bakshi.

Dehradun, June 14
Before the state government approves and work starts on the guidelines enlisted by Delhi-based agency ENC regarding its project “Storm Water Drainage System”, the Dehradun Municipal Corporation is supposed to solve the drainage-related problems. Mayor Vinod Chamoli pulled up officials of various wings of the state government for not doing their bit in dealing with the drainage problem which is why the DMC is left alone in sorting them out.

Chamoli said: “The drainage-related problems are multiplying day by day because other departments of state governments are not doing anything to solve them. The National Highway Authority is supposed to work on drainage choking on highway roads, the PWD on other city roads, the MDDA is to deal with them in newly built colonies, the Irrigation Department on canals but sadly most of such work is passed on to the MC. The general public too come to us for them”.

The Mayor too agreed to the findings of the detailed project report of the ENC, such as of compounding problem of encroachment and faulty development of buildings on the slanting side of the city, responsible for giving rise to drainage blockages. It is not only above the ground but under it too which is giving tough time to the DMC.

The Mayor says: “It is difficult to clear the drains especially from down below the ground as haphazard layout of wires, be it of phone, cable or water pipes, they are thickly intermingled with each other. It is a draconian task to sort them out and get the work done”.

For this year, he said his massive target would be to work upon the drainage systems of Indira Market, Kanak area, Budha Park, meat shops, Subzi Mandi which get partially submerged each rainy season. All these areas were built on sloping side and are low-lying areas where the rain water was needed to flow down from.

Chamoli said the only solution for these problems would be to create drainage pits to collect the rain water. He cited the similar kind of problem in busy commercial area of JMC Road which was sorted out by building a big nullah/drain in the area.

(Concludes)

Pantnagar, June 14
Farmers growing brinjal can expect good returns this season in the Kumaon region. Agricultural economist Jagdish Kumar, who is working with the Gobind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology here, has forecast the market price of brinjal for the coming season that will start from August and continue till November. According to him, the wholesale price of brinjal will be ranging from Rs 500 per quintal to Rs 625 per quintal this season.

The forecast has been made under a sub-project, “Establishing and networking of market intelligence centres in India”, which is under operation at the Pantnagar university and is funded by the National Agriculture Innovation Project of the Indian Council for Agriculture Research (ICAR). One of the objectives of this project is to make price forecasts well in advance of sowing and during harvesting of selected agricultural commodities.

A research team of the Agriculture Economics Department of the university has conducted a market survey of Haldwani regulated market, a major market for brinjal in Uttarakhand and has analysed market price data of the past 20 years in this market.

The results of econometric analysis show that the wholesale price of brinjal in Haldwani market will be in the range of Rs 500 per quintal to Rs 600 per quintal during August, Rs 525 per quintal to Rs 625 per quintal in September and Rs 500 per quintal to Rs 625 per quintal in October.

In November the market price of brinjal in Haldwani market is expected to prevail between Rs 500 per quintal and Rs 550 per quintal, which is slightly higher than the farm level prices that had prevailed during the last year in these corresponding months.

Dr Jagdish Kumar said the farmers could decide the area under brinjal cultivation in the coming season at their farms considering these forecast prices and other conditions. It has also been found that during this period consumers prefer round-shaped brinjal. This needs to be kept in mind while planning brinjal cultivation for the coming season, he said.

In Uttarakhand, brinjal is mainly grown in plain regions. It is grown in an area of 1,685 hectares in the state. Dehradun, Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital are the four major districts producing brinjal. Together these districts produced about 60 per cent of the total brinjal production in the state during 2007-08.

In Uttarakhand, the peak period of brinjal arrival in the market is October-November even though it is available right from August to January.

During the survey by the university, traders of the Haldwani market also indicated that October and November were the major arrival months for brinjal produce. According to the traders, the production of the brinjal is expected to be higher in the coming season.

Dehradun, June 14
Rimcollian Gaurav Hridaya outshone at the Indian Military Academy (IMA) bagging the most prestigious award the Sword of Honour and the President’s silver medal. In his days at Rashtriya Indian Military College (RIMC), he was the cadet captain and was also an outstanding all round cadet. For his enthusiastic performance in X country he was awarded with the college blazer, blue in athletics, blue in basketball and half blue in boxing. He was also outstanding when it came to adventure activities and awarded with a college blue in adventure activities. He was a proud mountaineer too.

Besides, he was an efficient in the fields of co-curricular activities such as academics, quizzing, debating and singing too. He was awarded with a Sword of Honour and a gold medal at his graduation ceremony.

In the National Defence Academy (NDA), he continued on his indelible trail of success and bagged the President’s gold medal, best Army cadet, best sportsman and best in officer like qualities (OLQ) awards.

In the recent past, Rimcollians at the NDA, too, have brought laurels to the institution. P Ashok Verma stood out achieving the most honourable President’s gold medal as well as first in computer science stream award, best naval cadet award, best in foundation course award and best in jointmanship award.

Rohit Shekhar was awarded President’s silver medal and also adjudged the best in officer like qualities (OLQ) and best Army cadet.

Cadet Raghav Swaroop Gupta was bestowed with Comdt’s motivation award.

The college also had passing-out cadets showing an excellent result on the NDA merit list attaining three out of the five top ranks. Rimcollian JS Suman topped the NDA merit list and Rimcollian Aman Thakur stood third in the All-India merit list. Rimcollian Anshul Bansal stood fourth in the merit list.

Doctors at a function at the General Hospital. Tribune photographs: Rameshwar Gaur

Haridwar, June 14
On the occasion of World Blood Donors Day, various programmes and functions were held in the city today. Many blood donation camps were organised by hospitals, medical centres and societies. Medical experts and NGOs urged people to donate blood voluntarily.

At the General Hospital a seminar was held wherein need of blood donation was discussed and the myths over the blood donation were dispelled. Dr BK Gairola, Chief Medical Officer, said blood donors were now united through World Blood Donors Day.

Dehradun, June 14
The Doon Combined Academy (DCA) got past the Doon Tiger Cricket Club (DTC) by 33 runs in the ongoing Uttarakhand Challenger Cup at the OFD Stadium, Raipur Road, here today. The DCA won the toss and opted to bat first. It set a target of 168 runs in 31 overs. It was a fine innings of Boby Bhandari (52) and Vaibhav Panwar (53) who helped the team put up a fighting total.

A match in progress at the Second Basudev Raghav Memorial Cricket Tournament at the Survey Grounds. Tribune photographs

Other batsmen couldn’t stand on the pitch for a long time and gave their wickets easily. For the DTC, Honey caught five wickets and Abhay took three wickets.

In reply, DTC didn’t have a good start as it lost three wickets at the score of 28. Himanshu (30) and Pardeep (24) were the main scorers for the chasing team. However, they couldn’t lead their side to a win.

Rakesh (19) later also chipped in, but in the absence of any long innings the team suffered a loss. The DTC got all-out on 134 runs in 26 overs.

While for bowling side, Vipin emerged as the successful bowler picking three wickets for 29 runs in five overs. Nitin took two wickets. Sunny, Ravindra, Akshay and Kamal Yadav also pocketed one wicket each.

Pawan scripts U’khand Academy win

Superb performance of Pawan helped the Uttarakhand Cricket Academy (UCA) register a thumping 19-run victory over Bijnor at the Second Basudev Raghav Memorial Mussoorie-Dehradun Challengers Trophy on the Survey Ground here today.

Batting first, the UCA team made a score of 133 runs while the Bijnor team made a total score of 112 runs.

Opener Brijender of UCA could make only 35 runs while Pawan was the highest scorer paving the way for his team’s victory. In the Bijnor team, Nitin was the highest scorer who smashed 39 runs.

In the second match held between UST, Delhi, and Meerut, the latter made a clean sweep of 131 runs over the opposite team where Rahul Chauhan showed his calibre in marking victory for his team.

Players vie for the ball during a match of the Lala Nemi Das District Football League in Dehradun on Monday. A Tribune photograph

Doon Challengers couldn’t counter attack and suffered another goal in the 56th minute when Vaibhav scored one to lose the match easily.

Garhwal Sporting, Doon Valley register victories

A match of the Dehradun Football League in progress on Monday. A Tribune photograph

Garhwal Sporting and Doon Valley registered one-sided victories in the ongoing District Football League underway in the Police Lines here today.

In the first encounter, Shashank struck three goals to lead Garhwal Sporting to a 3-0 win over Doon United. He netted three goals in the 31st, 48th and 60th minutes to overwhelm Doon Valley single handedly.

Doon Valley also rained goals on Yankees 5-0 with the help of three goal efforts of Tarun. He scored in the 36th, 46th and 68th minutes and a star of his team. Amit (16th minutes) had struck the first goal.

Thoi Thoi (65th minutes) also netted a goal to increase the goal tally of the Valley team. Yankees had no answer to the solid attack of the team and failed to retaliate. Yankees also lost the few opportunities it got during the match.

Pitthoragarh, June 14
After becoming the first Indian woman to scale the South Pole on ski, Rina Kaushal Dharmshaktu now wants to clean Himalayan peaks from litter which has been dumped there by countless trekkers and mountaineers over the years. “If I find any sponsor for this project, I want to traverse the inner Himalayas to free it from litter,” said Rina.

She said to take an expedition to some mountains was a costly project and its cost went into crores. “I was fortunate that I found my place in the South Pole expedition which was financed by some Russian clubs and the expenses were in crores,” said Rina.

Disappointed over the response on her success by the state government, Rina said the Uttarakhand government did not even acknowledge her success. “I, at this moment, cannot expect any financial help from the state government and for all my future expeditions I depend on the Indian Mountaineering Federation (IMF),” she added.

Informing about her immediate future plans, Rina said she was going on an expedition in August to scale Mount Stokangri (20,153 feet) in the Ladakh valley. The expedition was sponsored by the IMF.

“One of the long-cherished ambitions of my life is to lead an all-woman expedition to Himalayan peaks starting from the Trishul peak in the Kumaon Himalayas,” said Rina, adding that all her future plans depended on the financiers who had concerns for ecology of the inner Himalayan region.

Dehradun, June 14
The last football summer camp being organised by the Grassroots Sport Foundation concluded at Zone five at Chandmari village today. This was a three-week football camp that started on May 19 and about 60 children participated in it. Show matches were held today at the closing ceremony.

Certificates and refreshment were given to all participants and guests. CB Thapa, former international player, and Pradeep Dobhal were the guests of honour. During the closing ceremony, Upender Thapli, chairmen of the Krishi Utpadan Mandi Samiti presided over as the chief guest.

Ajay Thapa was camp coordinator and RB Thapa in charge.

The foundation is organising a football tournament among all 11 zones teams. The date of the tournament will be finalised within this week.

Budhiman Thapa, president of the foundation, said, “It has been our endeavour to promote football in Dehradun and tapping the talent from a grass-root levels”. 

Dehradun, June 14
Discontinuation of football matches on television by local cable operators following their dispute with ESPN is a boon for dealers of satellite dish television in Dehradun. It is a bonus for Dish TV and Reliance Big TV here, specially as two of the companies have done maximum business among satellite dish TVs available in the state capital owing to the dispute between the cable operators and the ESPN, the sole broadcaster of the matches. The disruption has turned football crazy enthusiasts looking for satellite dish TV dealers in the market.

Among the several options of Tata Sky, Zee Dish TV, Sun TV, Reliance Big TV and Airtel TV, Dish TV and Reliance Big TV are the most preferred ones by buyers due to the attractive deals they are offering. With the new connection of the digital television of Dish TV and Reliance Big TV, the company is giving the ESPN sports channel to the subscribers. The attractive deal of the two has left people craving for its services since the biggest sports tournament kicked off on Friday.

Early ’90s had brought the craze of cable TV network in India. It became popular in every household with popular daily soaps, talent hunt shows and advertisements. But due to bad quality and clarity of the pictures, the trend of satellite television made an influx in the market. While presently, thanks to the discrepancies among the local cable operators and the sports channel, dealers of the Direct To Home (DTH) services are doing great business in the city.

“It’s been almost a year that we had taken the subscription of Reliance Big TV. We are staying in a joint family with people having different preferences to be watched on television. It’s convenient for us to catch all attractions on television without missing a single episode. It’s easy and user friendly and can record the live matches of sports or daily soaps,” said homemaker Nilima Rana, who resides in Garhi.

Reliance Big TV and Zee Dish are being preferred by most of the households due to their customer-friendly features, flexible package selection and DVD quality picture. Various shops at every nook and corner are selling set top boxes and providing voucher facilities for recharging. From time to time the companies of digital televisions are coming up with schemes and features. The connection can be altered as per choice, while the installation of the set top boxes can be transferred along with the top ups of the vouchers in need of more channels.

“Though the digital set top boxes are in the market for more than one year, but recently their demand has gone up, reason being picture quality, customer-care facility, channels as per one’s choice, facility of keeping it prepaid or paying it annually as per convenience sake or, the most important, the FIFA World Cup 2010. The facilities under digital television plans are customer friendly and with people becoming quality conscious, it has naturally affected the business of cable operators,” informed Chaman Gupta of Gupta Electronics.

Initially, the cost of the DTH service was Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 approximately, after which various packages according to the number of channels are priced. However, as pre-paid facility is convenient for people, a majority of them are opting for its annual packages. Once the due date for payment of bill approaches, people are informed on their registered mobile numbers.

“We have just taken the subscription of the Zee Dish television due to its clarity and facility of having the ESPN sports channels during the FIFA World Cup matches. The best part of get this DTH service is that the company takes no additional installation charges from the subscribers and I can catch live matches or their recorded highlights without disruptions. However, earlier when I had cable connection, it was a nuisance during bad weather or no electricity,” said Aditya, a student.