HEALTH

No Kawasaki epidemic, say doctors
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 6
Doctors have stated that there is no sudden rise in the incidence of the Kawasaki disease cases in the city and there is no need for the residents to panic.

Kawasaki disease is a serious illness which usually afflict children below the age of five years with the child showing high grade fever lasting more than five days.

This is accompanied with reddening of lips and tongue, some swelling of the hands and feet, rashes on the skin, some reddening of the eyes and enlargement of the lymph nodes of the neck. Later the child might have peeling of the skin of the fingertips and toes.

This information is being given by the Kawasaki Awareness Society stall at the venue of the 17th annual conference of the Indian Rheumatology Association at the PGI.

Although members of the society say clearly that there no epidemic hitting the city, their main aim is to cause awareness about the disease and its symptoms among parents since it is rather a serious disease is often confused with conjunctivitis or flu.

The disease is curable and needs correct detection by a trained pediatrician. But if left untreated it can cause heart problems in the child. 

Sheshadri prize for PGI doctor
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 6
Prof Rajesh Kumar, Head of the Department of Community Medicine, PGI, has been chosen by the Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi, to receive the Dr M.K. Sheshadri prize and gold medal for his contribution to the practice of community medicine.

He has carried 341 research projects funded by WHO, the UNICEF, the ICMR, the DST, the DFID and the PGI and has published 91 research papers, eight training manuals and 17 project reports.

He has also presented 63 research papers in national and international conferences on various issues related to the control of diseases. He has organised several short-term training courses for health professionals, health administrators and primary healthcare workers.

Rally by GMCH staff
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 6
As many as 200 employees of the Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, participated in the rally held in the hospital here today. The employees were addressed by leaders of the union and are protesting against the alleged misbehaviour of the Medical Superintendent towards two employees of the hospital.

The leaders condemned the behaviour of the MS and the Nursing Superintendent towards the employees and stressed that the GMCH administration had never given the employees their due. The employees were also demanding that they should be given vacation like other categories of employees.

SPORTS

JR Sharma memorial tourney
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, December 6
The Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association XI outplayed the Orient Shipping Agency by three wickets on the opening day of the All-India JR Sharma Memorial Cricket Tournament held at JR Institute of Cricket Technology, Barwala, near here, today.

Brief scores: OS,Mumbai: 146 runs all out in 3 8.1 overs (Parveen Tambe 25, Ashok Kadam 17, Ajay Kadam 17, Rahul Panta 3 for 27, Amit Sharma ‘Jr’ 2 for 13, Pankaj Chadha 2 for 24, Ashok 2 for 26). HPCA XI: 150 runs for seven in 38.2 overs(Rajeev Nayyar 41 n.o.,Nischal Gaur 31, Puneet Lath 18, Abhey Kuruville 3 for 24,Ajit Rodrigues 2 for 29,Vishal Tawde 2 for 40).

Basketball event

The girl cagers of DAV Model School, Sector 15, recently won the first place in the basketball event of the All-India Mahatma Hansraj Aryan sports meet held at Barauni (Bihar). The Spikers of the school also bagged the runners-up place in the volleyball event.

Ball badminton

Chandigarh eves secured the second place in the sub-junior section in the just-concluded 21st National Sub-Junior Ball Badminton Championship at Birur (Karnataka). In the final, Chandigarh lost to Karnataka 26-29,18-29. At one stage, Chandigarh lead 22-9 in the first game. Earlier in the semi-finals, city girls upset defending champions Kerala 29-24,29-26. City boys bagged the eighth rank in this meet.

Boxing tourney

Sharda Sarvhitkari School, Sector 40, bagged the 16th UT Sub-Junior Boxing Championship played here today at Sector 23. They secured 45 points while the runner-up position went to Government Senior Secondary school, Maloya. Mr S.S. Virdi, patron, Chandigarh Amateur Boxing Association gave away the prizes. The winners were Pankaj Yadav, Paramjeet Singh, Rajesh Kumar, Sunder, Azad Malik, Satish Kumar, Manpreet, Dinesh, Surinder, Mukesh Rawat, Arun, Satish Kumar, Naresh, Hitesh, Kishore, Bawan and Sumit.

Basketball matches

The SGGS College club, Sector 26 lost to Sports Complex, Sector 46, 48-65, while PU campus beat the DAV School Club-8 52-28, and the Shivalik School Club-41defeated St Xavier’s School-44 55-33 on the second day of the Chandigarh Senior State Basketball Championship here.

In girls matches played today, Government Girls Secondary School-18 defeated the GCG Club 32-17, while the GCG Club-11 beat the GCG Club-42 34-23, and the GGSSC-18 beat the MCM DAV-36 37-11.

Saurav spends 30 minutes with fans
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 6
Saurav Ganguly's visit to Pizza Hut in Sector 26 here added to the excitement of the cricket fans who were already enthused over the victory of the Indian team. For G.S. Sawhney, the day brought another happiness as he got "the best opportunity of his life" to dine with the cricket star today.

The die-hard cricket fans flocked to get a glimpse of the star and get photographed with him.

Despite the change in the programme which was preponed by three hours and was held at around 5.30 pm, the jampacked Pizza Hut was witness to the enthusiasm of the fans who managed to get there in huge numbers even after the change.

A vividly happy Saurav spent around 30 minutes talking to his fans, giving his autograph and getting photographed.

Mr Sawhney won the "hook a date with Saurav Ganguly" contest held across all Pizza Huts in the country. Under the contest, the participants of the contest had to answer three questions and give a slogan on "why Pizza Hut, Pepsi and Saurav make an unbeatable combination?" to which Mr Sawhney had replied, "All three make a delightful treat — watch, drink and eat! ".

Brave boy’s dream comes true
Our Correspondent

Chandigarh, December 6
Sumit Singh Sheoran, a B.Com (II) student of Government College, Sector 11, was on cloud nine, when Sachin Tendulkar, presented him a T-shirt in Hotel Mountview. To him, the day was one of the rarest day which brought for him a bundle of joys when he not only received an appreciation award from the master blaster, but the star cricketer himself called him to meet.

Sumit was recently given a bravery award by the Chandigarh Administration for saving a boy from fire. How Sachin reacts to his feat, he pasted a newspaper report about the award on a paper and reached Hotel Mountview to meet him on Monday last. But he was not allowed to meet him. “I left a message along with the newspaper clipping and my friend’s cell phone number for Sachin requesting an audience with him”, he said.

On Tuesday evening he again went to meet Sachin, but unlike Monday, this time the security personnel at the hotel led him to Sachin’s suit. “He gave me an autographed T-shirt by his favourite “cricketer”, said Sumit.

“He is a simple man like us and I had never imagined that Sachin would bother to read my message and place a phone call for me”, Sumit added.

ADMINISTRATION

Legal aspects of VAT discussed
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 6
The Department of Excise and Taxation, Chandigarh Administration, along with North India Regional Council (NIRC) of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), organised a seminar today on Value Added Tax (VAT) which is set to be introduced from April next year.

The Finance Secretary, Mr Karan A. Singh, and the Deputy Commissioner, Mr M. Ramsekhar, were also present among professionals, businessmen and legal luminaries.

Various guest speakers including Mr Sunil Arora, Fellow Chartered Accountant, and Ms. Anju Kapur, a legal expert, deliberated on the various issues of VAT and clarified the queries of the audience.

A number of issues relating to Central sales tax, carry over of VAT credit, sales tax incentives, stock transfers, capital goods and transitionary provisions were also discussed.

Mr Sunil Arora also dealt with problems relating to implementation of VAT and said that fictitious documents, multiple credit for invoices, matching of inflow and outflow, tedious calculations, increased paper work and difficulties in assessment, would be some of the hurdles in the successful implementation of VAT. Mr Arora further added that duly checked documents, audited, checked accounts and exclusive audit report would facilitate auditing of sales tax to solve a lot of problems of the Administration.

With the implementation of VAT, time would be utilised in a better way, there would be quality of work and government would get more output and revenue, Mr Arora averred and added that Chandigarh must take up the issues pertaining to drafting of the Act, CST Act, staff training workshops and special rate of issue to Punjab.

Ms. Anju Kapur, who came from New Delhi, touched the legal aspects of VAT and spoke on the concept of VAT, goals of tax reform, design and implementation and proposed state drafts.

The Finance Secretary, Mr Karan A. Singh, said the need of the hour is to implement VAT with uniformity and added that true VAT would be better for the economy.

PANCHKULA
An interactive session between the officials of Excise and Taxation and representatives from trade and industry on Value Added Sales Tax Act, 2001, was organised at Red Bishop here today.

Mr S.P. Sharma, Commissioner and Secretary, Excise and Taxation, was the chief guest while Mr Yudhvir Singh, Additional Commissioner and Secretary, Excise and Taxation, delivered the key note address.

Speaking on the occassion, Mr Sharma said the Central Value Added Tax Act was a positive step in the direction of formulating a uniform taxation policy. He said that this was a system of levying tax on every stage of sale of goods with tax paid at earlier stages.

He said that VAT was proposed to be introduced primarily in replacement of for the existing sales tax in all states of the country, other than the special category states and newly created states.

However, representatives of various trade and industrialist organisations raised their doubts on the Act. Most of them felt that the government needed to device a mechanism for having a value added tax with the Central Sales Tax being deferred. They said that CST should be adjusted so that the VAT could be implemented in the real sense.

Many people complained that since they buy most of the raw material from outside states, they had already paid CST on the goods, but under VAT, they would not get any rebate on this CST paid.