Special AIDS awareness camps
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 26
With just four days to go for World Aids Day, 2001, the aids awareness campaign is in full swing in the city.

The programme, which was started by the State AIDS Control Society of the city on November 22, has instituted special AIDS awareness camps complemented with diagnosis and treatment of STIs/RTIs.

Eight such camps are being organised across the city in collaboration with NGOs working in this field. The other activities include rallies, street plays, exhibition, medical camps, film shows etc.

The song and drama division of the Government of India has provided specially trained teams that would be using folk media to disseminate messages on HIV/AIDS and STDS. A two-day orientation workshop was conducted on November 23 and 24 at Indira Holiday Home, Sector 24, for the folk troupe.

A two-day poster making competition is also being organised in collaboration with the Arts College in their campus in Sector 10. The schools and colleges of the city have been asked to send their art students to the competition. The selected posters will displayed at the main function scheduled to be held on December 1, 2001 at Government College Sector 46. Ms Neeru Nanda, adviser to the UT administrator, shall be the chief guest. Mr Karan Avtar Singh, Finance Secretary, UT, and Chairman of the State AIDS Control Society, UT, shall preside.

Many of the programmes are being carried out at the level of the roadside barbers, rickshaw-pullers, migrant labour, street children and jail inmates. Several schools and colleges of the city shall be participating in conducting debates, declamation contests, postermaking, slogan writing competitions and lectures by experts on HIV/AIDS during the next week. 

Seminar on disabilities
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 26
The State Resource Centre for Disabilities will be organising a seminar on, “Disability prevention and rehabilitation”, at Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32 tomorrow, to commemorate the World Disability Week.

Ms Neeru Nanda, Adviser to the UT Administrator, will be inaugurating the seminar. Among those who will speak on the occasion include Justice G.S. Singhvi of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, who will speak on the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1955.

Mr Sarabjeet Singh Sandhu, Chief Architect, UT will dwell on a Barrier-free environment for the disabled. Ms Madhvi Kataria, Director, Social Welfare will highlight the various facilities provided by the disabled by the Government.

Dr Lalit Bhardwaj will discuss the role of Information Technology in disability. Prof B.S. Chavan, HOD, Psychiatry will discuss the role of leisure and sports for the disabled. Prof Raj Bahadur, MS, GMCH and the nodal officer of the resource centre, UT, will apprise the audience with the disability process and its magnitude. 

Bone density check-up camp
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 26
The Chandigarh Press Club, in collaboration with the Chandigarh Clinical Laboratories and Elder Pharma-ceutical, today organised a free bone density check-up camp. The camp was organised by the Sector 22 branch of the State Bank of India.

Mr Sarabjit Pandher, Secretary-General of the club, said the club received an overwhelming response. He said 250 members and their families were examined and receipts delivered to them on the spot. Doctors (Mrs and Mr ) A.S. Bhatia of Chandigarh Orthopaedic and Physiotherapy Clinic and Dr Parveen Taneja from the Ortho-Care provided free consultation.

Mr A.C. Dhawan, Chief Manager of the State Bank of India , personally supervised the camp and even participated in various processes related to the tests and consultation.

The members were scanned with the bone densitometry equipment provided by Elder Pharmaceuticals.

Meeting of blood donation panel
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 26
A meeting of the Haryana Red Cross Voluntary Blood Donation Committee was held at the Red Cross Bhawan here today. Presiding over the meeting Dr J.G. Jolly, former PGI Blood Bank Society Director and Chairman of the committee stressed the need to wipe out efforts at commercialisation in the blood donation programme. He appealed to the members of the committee to educate and motivate the community particularly the youth for voluntary blood donation.

Dr Jolly also appreciated the role of the Haryana Red Cross branch for the excellent work they had done in organising 299 voluntary blood donation camps and collecting 64142 units of blood during the year 2000.

It was also decided in the meeting that a state level conference of various organisations and other volunteers who are involved in this programme will be held at Rohtak to strengthen the programme of the state.

India’s only woman skeet shooter
Arvind Katyal

Chandigarh, November 26
Aarti Singh is the only Indian woman skeet player who is here in the city to participate in the shooting contests of the 31st National Games at the new shooting range in SAS Nagar. Aarti comes from a family of shooters. Her father, Rao Inderjeet Singh, himself remained an international skeet shooter who had taken part in the last Asian Games in Bangkok. She said her mother was a national trap event shooter and her younger sister was also a national trap shooter.

When asked why she chose skeet event and not any of the air weapons event, she said,” Do you mean to say that women cannot compete in skeet events”.

Aarti, who stays at Chhatarpur near Delhi and goes to Tughlakabad ranges for practice, said she practiced with male shooters and on equal terms. She took to this event in the year 1999. In the World Cup held at Lonato (Italy), she was able to secure fourth place by shooting 21 birds out of the 25 in the finals with initial score of 70/75. She even overpowered Olympics medallist Zelfira of Azarbaijan. On the basis of his performance in that meet, she had been allowed to compete in the year 2002 World Cup where only top eight shooters of the world would vie for top honours. Other shooters for this contest would be from China, Russia,Cyprus, Hungary, USA and the contest would be held in Doha (Qatar).

She said practising five times a week was good enough for her to achieve near total perfection. With Peru coach Juan Giha now here in India to train skeet shooters, the performance of skeet shooters would improve.

Aarti said the skeet shooters were the true ‘shikaris’ of modern world who would excelled in killing birds. She said, “At present I use a .12 bore gun of Boretta 682 gold. Aarti said women shooters should take to clay pigeon events such as trap, double trap and skeet. She said this would help in the formation of a strong team at the national level. She said her aim was to win a medal in the Athens Olympics (2004) for which she was practising hard. She said with the Peru coach to guide her, her performance was likely to improve. She said her training plans as envisaged by her coach included mental management, physical strengthening exercises including psychological aspects which were the latest in this event for any shooter to improve upon.

Hansraj club skaters shine in roller hockey
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, November 26
The Hansraj Skating Club, Panchkula, won the first places in both sub-junior and junior boys sections of the roller hockey event of the 7th Panchkula District Roller Skating Championship which concluded here today at the skating rink of Hansraj Public School, Sector 6, Panchkula.

About 150 skaters from Hansraj Public School, Nav Bal Niketan, Manav Mangal School, HPS Skating Club, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan and Satluj Public School took part in various events like road races, speed and roller hockey. Mr T.C. Gupta president, Haryana Roller Skating Association, who is also the vice-President of the Roller Skating Federation of India, presided over the prize distribution function. He appreciated performance of women roller hockey players of Panchkula who had brought glory to the city, state and nation in the 9th Asian Roller Skating Meet held in Taiwan. Ritika Sharma, Rayasha Rajput and Anuja Chauhan were honoured on this occasion. A cultural programme was also presented by students of the hosts school. Selected skaters will now represent the district in the Haryana State Roller Skating Championships to be held at Kurukshetra from November 28 to 30.

The winners in various age groups in rink races were, Abhishek Duggal, Ritu Mangat, Rohit sharma, Juhi Bhatnagar, Aseem Jindal, Meenu Bhoria, Reetika, Mohnish Sharma, Kunal Saroha, Rayasha Rajput. In rink race II, the first position holders were, Shoban Garg, Ritu, Anmol Singh, Juhi, Varinder Pal Singh, Shagun ,Kuljinder ,Ritika, Ruby Saini, Saurabh Dhir, Aseem Jindal and Salil Anand.

Results: roller hockey: sub-junior boys: Hansraj Skating Club 1, Roller Hawks Club 2, Nav Bal Niketan Skating Club 3. Sub-Junior girls: Nav Bal Niketan School 1, Nav Bal Niketan Club 2. Junior boys: HPS club 1, Nav Bal Niketan club 2.

Members of the sub-junior roller hockey team of the Hansraj Skating Club, Panchkula, that won the 7th Panchkula District Roller Skating Meet-2001 held at Hansraj Public School, Panchkula, on Monday.

Snooker meet

Nikhil Gupta outplayed Varun Khanna, 67-13, 37-38,56-50, 23-52 and 69-17, in the Haryana State Sub-Junior Snooker Championships played here on Monday at Sector 26. In another match, Karun Handa defeated Akshay Sharma, 27-55,48-17,50-28, 54-32. In other matches played at Sector 34 pool, Aman Bhasin, Sameer Bhalla, Akshay Sharma emerged winners in pool matches.

Land conversion Act amended
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 26
The UT Administration has amended the Chandigarh Conversion of Residential Leasehold Land Tenure into Freehold Land Tenure Rules, 1996.

According to an official notification here today, Rule 9 will now read as: “Provided that in cases where the conveyance deed is to be registered in the name of GPA as per rule 8, the stamp duty is to be charged as per the provisions under the Indian Stamp Act.

43 structures razed
Tribune News Service

SAS Nagar, November 26
The enforcement staff of PUDA today demolished at least 43 unauthorised structures on public places in Phase X. A total of 102 houses were surveyed before carrying out the demolitions.

The enforcement team of the PUDA ( regulatory) wing, as part of their drive to check unauthorised construction activity in the periphery, surveyed villages in the Mullanpur — Ferozepore belt.