Mussoorie, October 23
In an ongoing conference of the North Zone Ophthalmologists Society, titled “NZOS Uttara Eyecon 2010”, senior eye surgeons were of the view that “eyes are windows of the soul”. Therefore, eradicating eye-related diseases from the face of the country was the responsibility of not only the ophthalmologists, but the society at large.

The speakers reiterated their pledge keeping “VISION 2020: The Right to Sight” to the fore and said all experts should participate in this global initiative to eliminate avoidable blindness.

Vision 2020 is a partnership between the World Health Organisation (WHO) and a large umbrella organisation for eye-care professional groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in eye-care.

The installation ceremony was also held late last evening in which the outgoing president made way for Dr OP Oli from Dehradun as president of the NZOS. The other executive committee was also initiated on the occasion by chief guest Dr Kekie Mehta.

The doctors also deliberated on the use of a new technology emerging in surgery and means to put it into practice. Senior surgeon at Doon Hospital Dr BC Ramola, along with Dr Lingam Gopal, Dr Vinod Arora, Dr BK Oli, Dr Rajat Maheshwari, Dr D Ramamurthy, Dr Shyam S Dhanak and others were honoured with citation and awards for excelling in the designated field.

Dr Mehta from Mumbai, speaking on the occasion, congratulated the new body and said the conference was deliberating on the ways to transfer the new technique to the last man in society in rural areas. He also said the transfer of technology initiated in these conferences benefited the society at large.

Speaking on the issue of doctors not entering the government hospitals due to lack of facilities he said that the doctors ruing the lack of facilities were just making lame excuses.

“Doctors who have to work will work in any condition,” he said. No government hospital could provide facilities similar to private ones, but doctors could benefit a large number of patients in government hospital.

He further said such workshops should be funded by state governments as a large number of people in the state would be benefited, and if there was decrease in the number of blind people in the state, it would create two more hands to work and be an added asset for the state.

Another invited guest Vijay Dhasmana from Himalayan Hospital also addressed the gathering on the conference of North Zone Ophthalmologists Society.

Haridwar, October 23
With thousands of children getting afflicted with blindness every year in India, under the World Sight Day an awareness programme was organised where causes and precautions of getting unnaturally blindness were discussed.

Doctors specially informed children about the precautions and causes related to the disease as well as generating awareness among them on blindness, visual impairment and rehabilitation of the visually impaired. Noted eye specialist Dr Subrat Arora gave a presentation to the students briefing them about the objective of the day being celebrated and various ways by which they could prevent blindness.

“Several cases occur of eye accidents during festivals and while playing. Like on Diwali due to crackers, on Holi due to harmful colours and also while playing sports, which involved sharp or pointed items like gulli-danda, archery without proper safety equipment, etc. Apart from this, parents or individuals themselves applied self-medication when it came to eye infection. This could be quite dangerous if proper prescription was not followed,” said Dr Subrat, eye surgeon at Mela Hospital.

Eye specialist at GD Hospital, Dr Ravindra Thapliyal, too, informed the children about various aspects regarding care of one’s eyes, particularly when one was affected with conjunctivitis or couldn’t read normally the blackboard. That’s the time when one should immediately consult a doctor.

A painting and slogan competition on “blindness and precaution” was also ogranised by the Andhata Niwaran Samiti in which schoolchildren in large numbers participated at Bhalla Intermediate College. In the senior category of the painting completion, Narayan Paneru was adjudged the winner, with Shubham Gautam and Karan Rana sharing the second and third prizes. While in the junior section, Sanjay Kumar, Kakul Saini and Upendra Singh’s paintings were adjudged the best.

In the slogan competition, Neha Rawat was declared the best slogan writer in the senior section with Anita Mishra and Rohit Chakravarty runners-up, while Sweety Goniyal, Kiran Bisht and Sheetal Kumari shared the prizes in the junior category.

Nainital, October 23
GAIL (India) Limited commenced the construction of its Karanpur-Moradabad-Kashipur-Rudrapur-Pant Nagar natural gas pipeline at Kashipur yesterday. The project was started in the presence of Chairman and Managing Director of GAIL BC Tripathi along with other senior officials of the organisation and local administration.

According to a GAIL (India) spokesperson, “The Karanpur-Moradabad-Kashipur-Rudrapur-Pant Nagar pipeline will be 182 km in length. It will be laid from tap-off point on 24 inch Auraiya-Sahajahanpur-Babrala-Dadri pipeline of GAIL at Karanpur to Rudrapur and Pantnagar. The estimated investment on the project is Rs 250 crore”.

This pipeline will pass through Badayun and Moradabad districts in the state of Uttar Pradesh and Udham Singh Nagar in Uttarakhand. It will supply gas to an upcoming power plant 
in Kashipur in Uttarakhand and to other industrial customers in Moradabad, Kashipur and Rudrapur along with the City Gas Distribution network in Moradabad.

“This pipeline will be built in two phases. In Phase I of the project, 101 km of the pipeline will be laid from the Karanpur station to the Kashipur receipt station along with connectivity pipelines to upcoming power plants, industrial consumers and City Gas consumers. The first phase is scheduled to be completed by January, 2011, at an estimated investment of Rs 196 crore. In Phase II of the project, 58 km of the pipeline will be laid from Kashipur to Rudrapur and Pant Nagar. This phase of the project will involve an estimated investment of Rs 56 crore. The entire project is targeted to be completed by January 2012,” the spokesperson added.

In line with the corporate strategy, the endeavour of GAIL has been to commission the pipeline projects within schedule and cost while tackling the risk and uncertainty encountered in each phase of its execution. During the design stage of the project, various environmental aspects have been considered and incorporated. Among these, maximum weightage has been given to the route selection and the safety features in the pipeline design.

“The proposed gas pipeline system will have all environmental advantages inherent in a pipeline mode of energy transport system. The pipeline will be buried underground. Pipe of adequate specified minimum yield strength with safety margin, confirming to standard codes will be used to withstand the maximum operating pressure. For rivers and other crossings, higher wall thickness pipes will be used.

The pipeline will be hydro tested as per standard specifications. Suitable control and monitoring will be exercised during construction, operation and maintenance of the pipeline system,” he added.

GAIL (India) Limited is India’s largest natural gas company. Apart from natural gas transmission, distribution and processing, the company has diversified business interests in Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) transmission, petrochemicals, city gas projects and exploration and production activities. The company has presence in Egypt and China through City Gas projects and also in Myanmar and Oman. GAIL has set up a wholly owned subsidiary company GAIL Global (Singapore) Pvt. Ltd. in Singapore.

The Company recorded a Turnover of Rs 24,996 crore and profit after tax of Rs 3,140 crore in 2009-10. GAIL possesses around 8,000 km of natural gas pipeline transmission network and is laying five new natural gas pipelines measuring 5,000 km.

Haridwar, October 23
While markets of the city are already buzzing with the pre-Diwali preparations, particularly cracker shops are coming out with varied designer and heavy sound-exploding crackers, the most potential buyers of these light explosives school children seem to be almost boycotting these.

Yes, it is very true with children realising the negative effects of crackers on environment and various accidents that occur during the festival, schoolchildren are pledging for a cracker and pollution-free festival of Diwali this time.

Encouraged by school management, guided by teachers and full cooperation from parents, this Diwali in the pilgrim city seems to be surely heading towards a pollution-free one as is seen by the enthusiasm of the students in various anti-crackers campaign being organised in the schools.

One such innovative campaign is being run in Shiv Dale Public School in Jagjeetpur, where students drew greeting cards and put these on sale, urging their parents to buy these greeting cards instead of purchasing crackers for them.

Self-made greeting cards on the twin theme of “no to crackers” and “environment pollution”, students from Class I to Class XII participated in this campaign with hundreds of cards on sale. Impressed by their environmental consciousness, parents, relatives and local people visited the two-day card gallery in a large number with almost all cards sold out.

Participants had priced their self-made greeting cards from Rs 10 to Rs 100, but due to their environmental social cause they fetched as high as Rs 1,000, too, for a single eco-awareness card. Like Shehjal, Class VII, and Aditi Tiwari Class X, and Chavi Class V, showed various ill-effects of crackers and were quite elated to know that their self-innovative cards have fetched per piece Rs 50 and all will go to social causes.

This unique concept is the idea of school founder Swami Sharad Puri Maharaj, who has been laying special emphasis on inculcating values among the schoolchildren. Talking to The Tribune, he said, “With environment pollution becoming a major hazardous globally and usage of polythene, burning of crackers, wasting of potable water and other acts by us having negative impact on environment generating mass awareness among students is imperative.”

“This is the best way to generate awareness among children about environmental pollution and the natural ways by which we can enjoy and celebrate the festive. Children actively participated in this event that we have got encouragement to organise more such events on a larger scale,” said Suman Kalra, social science teacher.

If every school carries such anti-cracker programmes, it will not be far when the festive of light (diyas) will be in real sense festive of light and natural eco-friendly one.

Mussoorie, October 23
The day is not far when Paltoo (name changed) of Mana village at the border of China near Badrinath, who is suffering from cataract, will be operated upon by experienced eye-surgeons through video-surgery via satellite. This was stated by senior eye surgeon at the Doon Hospital Dr BC Ramola.

Dr Ramola informed that the government was contemplating to set up a mobile unit equipped with state-of-art technology and satellite communication where senior doctors sitting at the base hospital would advise, via video linkup, the doctors handling the mobile clinic and direct them on the surgical operations if needed. In this way the senior surgeon could be part of the operation even while staying away from far-flung areas and help in decreasing cases of blindness in the state.

He also said the Marine 108 Service, popularly called water ambulances, was also being planned in the Tehri Lake area so that patients would get first aid speedily and reach community health centres immediately.

Dr Ramola, a recipient of the Community Opthamlogy Award for performing most operations in the state, on receiving it said the award was a result of his 25 years of unhindered service to the state.

Advising young doctors, Ramola said they should work with a motto “There’s no substitute for hard work”. They should serve people in any condition, be it in the city or rural areas. He also said women in the hills were neglected when it came to eye care and they were told that they would be treated only when there was an eye camp. This attitude led to a large number of cases of blindness. This attitude should be changed to “we the state and the country can achieve its target as aspired under Vision 20:20 Right to Sight”.

Dehradun, October 23
With a vision to deliver service to mankind as well as to eradicate orthopaedic diseases from Uttarakhand, Dr BKS Sanjay, renowned orthopaedic and spine surgeon, announced a day-long health camp for patients with bone-related diseases here today. The check-up camp will be organised at Sanjay Orthopaedic and Spine Center tomorrow from 10 am to 5 pm at free of cost.

While addressing a press conference, Dr Sanjay presented a short slide presentation of the patients who have been successfully operated upon last year. He also narrated the achievement of curing 100 patients at the previous health camp who were suffering from polio, muscle weakness and cerebral palsy.

Dr Sanjay opined that Uttarakhand being a hilly state with difficult topography had a huge number of patients with orthopaedic diseases and had to rely on hospitals in other states for treatment. “Running to other states for treatment also turns out to be an economic decline to the patients. However, to make availability of quality treatment for such patients, we have organised a day-long health camp at our hospital”.

“The patient should not conceal his ailments and get these treated at the right time so that an effective cost of treatment of the surgeon lies in the number of successful surgeries. We are working in the direction of greater patient compliance and making their lives better,” affirmed Dr Sanjay.

Dehradun, October 23
People of the city today took out a shobha yatra to celebrate Maharishi Balmiki Jayanti. The yatra was inaugurated by Suryakant Dhasmana, senior Congress leader and Sudha Bahuguna, wife of Tehri MLA Vijay Bahuguna.

The yatra comprising more than two dozens of tableau depicting scenes from the Ramayana began from Shivaji Dharamshala and ended there only.

Earlier, talking about Maharishi Valmiki, Dhasmana said it was Maharishi Valmiki who gave birth to poetry and also taught how to live peacefully. The Ramayana was his brainchild and it had inspired our life. It gave a true picture of a devoted father, son, wife, friend, etc. He said Valmiki suggested to Lord Rama Chitrakut when he (Lord Rama) was in banishment. Later, when he abandoned Sita, she visited the ashram and gave birth to Luv and Kush. It was only after their birth that the Ramayana came into being.

While congratulating people on the auspicious day, Sudha said they prayed to Valmiki as everyone was guided by his thoughts.

Other than tableaus, eight bands were a centre of attraction on the occasion.

Dehradun, October 23
A 16-year-old girl committed suicide by setting herself afire in the bathroom of her residence at Khatta Pani, Doiwala, this morning.

The reason of the suicide could not be established. However, sources said the girl had gone to some jagran on Thursday night and had reportedly been seeing spirits since then and was in fear. Her neighbours also said she had a love affair, which might have gone sour that forced her taking the extreme step.

According to the police, Juhi, a Class XI student, had gone to the bathroom in the morning and bolted the door from inside. Nobody was in the house when she reportedly set herself afire inside.

After some time, when shouts and flames started coming out from there, the neighbours rushed to the spot. The girl was brought to the hospital where she succumbed to her injuries. The police is investigating the matter.