Rotary eye care centre opens
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, December 26
A Rotary Eye Care Centre was inaugurated by Dr Ravijit Singh, son of Dr Daljit Singh at Guru Teg Bahadur Charitable Hospital here yesterday. The centre, having ultra modern equipment will come as a boon for poor patients who would get facilities of latest surgical techniques like phaco laser surgery and auto refraction at an affordable cost.

Dr Ravijit Singh urged the eye specialists to give equal attention to eye conditions caused by diabetes, glaucoma and congenital cataract and not to restrict their work to cataract patients alone. He also stressed the need for maintaining the quality of treatment provided rather than concentrating just on the number of patients treated.

In his welcome address, Dr R.S. Sodhi, Medical Superintendent of the hospital, expressed his gratitude to the Rotary Foundation, Rotary Club of Ludhiana, as also a number of NRIs, who had made a significant contribution towards making the eye care centre a reality.

Dr Preety and Dr A.S Bindra spoke about the hospital and the Rotary movement. Besides several members of the Rotary Club and doctors from the hospital, Bakshi Mohinder Singh, Chairman of the managing committee, were also present at the function.

Meanwhile, Dr Sodhi informed that the skin department of GTB Hospital had recently been renovated and latest equipment had been added. The department was not equipped to treat the patients with PUVA therapy which was indicated in vitilIgo, psoriasis and allergic conditions.

Yadwinder to lead Punjab basketball team
Our Sports Reporter

Ludhiana, December 26
Yadwinder Singh of Baba Lodhiana Academy and Manpreet Kaur of Ludhiana have been selected to lead the Punjab men's and women's teams, respectively, in the 57th Senior National Basketball Championship to be held at Jaipur from December 28 to January 4. This was stated by Mr Teja Singh Dhaliwal, honorary general secretary of the Punjab Basketball Association.

The teams are: Men: Yadwinder Singh, Jagdeep Singh, Gagandeep Singh, Sukhbir Dhillon, Nikhil Chopra, Dilawar Singh of Baba Lodhiana Academy, Damandeep Singh Teja of Amritsar, Mandeep singh of Gurdaspur, Gurpal Singh Palli of the PSEB, Mahesh Mishra of the BSF, Paramdeep Singh of the BSF, Harwinder Singh of the PAP. Dr S. Subramanian would accompany the team as the coach while B.S. Brar would be the manager.

Women: Manpreet Kaur, Kawaljit Kaur, Taranjit Kaur and Paramjeet Kaur of Ludhiana, Saloni, Sarabjeet Kaur and Jyoti Sharma of Jalandhar, Kiranjit Kaur and Harminder Kaur of Baba Lodhiana Academy, Harpreet Kaur of Amritsar, Satwinder Kaur and Reena of Kapurthala. Devinder Pal Singh would be the coach and Dr Suman Sharma the manager.

Lakhwinder Nabha Open champ
Our Sports Reporter

Ludhiana, December 26
Lakhwinder Singh (Punnu), a trainee of the Ludhiana Badminton Academy (LBA), gave a stupendous performance to win Nabha Open Badminton Championship recently. He overpowered his experienced opponents to emerge the champion.

Mr Mohinder Kumar Chopra, president of the Ludhiana Badminton Academy, said on the way to finals, Lakhwinder defeated junior international player from Chandigarh, Oscar Bansal in semifinals (21-12, 16-21, 21-18).

In the final, he defeated Harinder Singh, Punjab champion of 2006, in straight games. He wrapped up the first game without being challenged 21-7. In the second game, the Chandigarh shuttler tried to match up Lakhwinder, but eventually went down 12-21. Harinder had defeated Lakhwinder in the Punjab State Men's Championship.

Lakhwinder joined the academy only five months back where coach Mangat Rai Sharma polished his game. Mr Chpora expressed gratitude towards the authorities in the PSEB for extending support to Lakhwinder.