Two skaters perform;Tribune photographs

In skating, India have no competition
Sandeep Rana
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, January 10
In almost all of the ice-skating events, which are to be played in the South Asian Federation (SAF) Winter Games, India will possibly be the champion. However, in skiing events it is likely to face a tough competition from Pakistan.

Reason: Some of the main ice-skating events have the host nation as the only participant as other nations are novice in ice-skating. Countries like the Maldives and Bhutan have never practised or seen the sport.

Though Nepal sends their players to parts of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh to practise, it has never participated in any winter game. The only tough rival Pakistan is also not taking part in the ice-skating events.

Even today, in the ice hockey event and ice figure skating Indian players were competing with Indians only. After the inauguration, friendly ice-hockey match was played between two teams and both comprised of Indian players since there was no other team participating in the event.

Today only, the ice figure skating competitive event was played and, of course, India dominated the day one of the SAF Games as it was an all-India participants event.

This forced the officials of the federation to introduce the grading system instead of traditional gold, silver and bronze medal, as no other participating South Asian countries was in the event.

However, the officials added that even as the medal system had been withdrawn, these players would be felicitated.

Tomorrow, the second day of the SAF Games, will begin with speed ice skating events, which will have three other countries also participating.

The nations that will be taking part in the various speed skating events for both men and women will include Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and host India.

Certainly speed skating event will give some respite to the organisers. The federation officials said of course the skiing events would be the main as the almost all nations, including the mighty Pakistan, would take part in it.

More pictures on page 3

A file picture of Tipu enjoying a bath in the Chilla range of the Rajaji National Park in Pauri Garhwal district. Tribune photo: Rameshwar Gaur

The victor of Tipu’s last duel is a young 25-year-old elephant bull with shorter tusks than Tipu, but great strength. Many at Rajaji believe that this young bull would probably be the next king of Rajaji, but there will always be only one Sultan of Rajaji — Tipu.

Park mulls memorial to jumbo

Haridwar: To make sure that the memory of Tipu lives forever, the park administration is contemplating building a memorial to Tipu. Director of the Rajaji National Park SS Rassailly said the death of Tipu was a big loss to the thousands of tourists who visited the park every season. He said the park authorities were thinking of raising a memorial to Tipu so that tourists visiting the park got to know about the magnificent elephant.

Tipu, at the age of 65, was also the longest living elephant in the whole of the Asian continent. For more than a decade, it had been used for research, which has provided vital data about the life of elephants to the scientists who work across the nine ranges of the Rajaji National Park.

Several elephants have lost their lives in the fight for supremacy in the herd. Last year in a similar fight between two elephants in the Chilla range of the park that lasted for more than 12 hours, a 32-year-old elephant was killed.

The mating season for the pachyderms has started and so has the violent behavior in the jumbos.

Wildlife scientist Ritesh Joshi, who has been researching on elephant behavior in the park area for one decade, said more such fights among elephants during the ongoing ‘mast season would be witnessed. The male-female ratio is in favour of female elephants in the park area, he added.

Dehradun, January 10
Dehradun’s eminent scientist Dr IP Pandey was among the over 250 scientists from across the world who recently attended the First International Conference on Sustainable Urbanisation (ICSU-2010) in Hong Kong.

This was the first conference of its kind, organised by Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Dr Pandey was one of the two delegates from India, the other was from Karnataka.

In the three-day conference, Dr Pandey also co-chaired a session on Sustainable Urban Transportation vis-à-vis global warming which discussed at length important issues pertaining to urban transportation and connected matters.

He also presented a paper on the “Role of Bioethanol from Lignocellulosic Wastes in the Global Climate,” which was highly acclaimed. Delegates presented papers on various facets of climate change, sustainable urbanisation, water pollution and solid waste management.

Dr Pandey was until recently associate professor and head of the department of chemistry, DAV (PG) College, Dehradun. At present, he is heading Oil Extraction, Environment and Disaster Management Laboratory at DAV College, which has two ongoing projects.

Incidentally, Dr Pandey had also attended and presented a paper at the International Congress of Chemistry and Environment (ICCE-2009 held in January 2010 in Thailand).

His paper, “Environmental Assessment of Crude Oil and Effluents of Oil Fields and Impact on Environment,” was highly appreciated. He also had the distinction of chairing one of the sessions.

Dr Pandey has to his credit 133 papers on environment chemistry and allied subjects and has also supervised and guided over 30 PhD scholars, including 10 ONGC scientists.

He is also the joint editor of University Journal of Phyto-chemistry and Ayurvedic Heights. At present, he is guiding 10 students for doctorate. Dr Pandey had attended several international conferences. He has also been regularly attending as a delegate since 1997 Petrotech India, organised by the Oil and Gas Industry and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.

Haridwar, January 10
Terming Indian philosophy as the best in the world, while western philosophies are just contradictions, the world is accepting the rich Vedic era philosophy of India. This, along with various other aspects, was dwelt on by Jagad Guru Shankaracharya Raj Rajeshwaram and Union Minister of State Harish Rawat while presiding over as the chief guest and special guest at the Indian Philosophical Congress being organised at Gurukul Kangri University.

The 84th session of the Philosphical Congress, which concludes tomorrow, is being attended by hundreds of delegates from across the nation dwelling on various facets of the philosophy.

Speaking as a special guest, Jagad Guru Shankaracharya Raj Rajeshwaram said if there was any philosophy, then it had to be an Indian one, as other philosophies were just contradictions which were limited to just arguments. He said Indian philosophy taught moral values comprising purity, while western philosophies were laced with addictions.

Haridwar parliamentarian Harish Rawat said in this changing life style, materialistic age people were getting inclined to Indian philosophy as it was of high quality and even the western world regarded it.

He said the traits of Indian culture, catering to various situations and persons, made it the best acceptable philosophy.

Various research letters, papers were presented at the congress by researchers, scholars and intellectuals.

Host department of philosophy head Dr US Bisht informed that the central subject of the convention was, “How to make philosophy more fruitful in today’s time”, with various sessions being held around the topic in this three-day national-level convention.

Among others who spoke were Prof Mahavir Aggarwal, Prof RP Shrivastava, Prof M Azhill, Dr Nitesh Dubey and other philosophers, intellectuals and academicians.

Dehradun, January 10
Doon Star set up the title clash with Akranta today beating 2/3 Gorkha Rifle 4-2 in a tiebreaker in the second semifinal of the Great Vivekanand Memorial Football Tournament being held on the Pavilion Ground here.

The well-fought match ended goalless in stipulated time. In the tiebreaker, Doon Star managed to defeat their opponents 4-2 to enter the final.

Rajender Singh Rawat, Vijay, Rajesh Chauhan and Puri Chand scored for the winning team. Yogesh and Chab Chaba struck goals for 2/3 GR. The final will be played on January 12, the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekanand.

Dehradun, January 10
Panjab University, Chandigarh, beat University of Jammu, Jammu, 3-0 in a match of the Women Team Championship on the first day of the North Zone Inter University Table Tennis Tournament 2010-2011 being organised by Uttarakhand Technical University at the Auditorium Hall of the Principal Controller of Defence Accounts, Rajpur Road, from January 10 to 13.

Also, HNB Garhwal University beat Lucknow University 3-0 in another women championship match.

In yet another match of this category, PTU, Jalandhar, defeated Jamia Millia University, Delhi, 3-2.

Kumaon University, Nainital, beat CCS University, Meerut, 3-0. MJP, Rohelkhand, lost to RML Avadh University, Faizabad, 2-3. HPU, Shimla, got the better of KN Kurukshetra University by 3-2.

In the Men Team Championship, HNB Garhwal University beat JM Islamia University, Delhi, 3-0. CSJM University, Kanpur, beat PTU, Jalandhar, 3-1. AMU, Aligarh, defeated HPU, Shimla, 3-2.

UTU, Dehradun, beat CCS, Meerut, 3-2 and RML Avadh University, Faizabad, surpassed Thapar University, Patiala, 3-1.

Dehradun, January 10
Rohit Rawat of Uttarakhand beat Jayam Balani of Uttar Pradesh 8-2 in the All-India Talent Series Tennis Tournament 2011 that began today at the Shanti Tennis Academy, Dalanwala.Abhinay Kumar of Delhi defeated Ishan Sethi of Uttarakhand 8-2 and Durvish Handa of Delhi got the better of Rohan Gupta of Delhi 8-2.

Players from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi are taking part in the competition.