HEALTH

Male contraceptive becoming popular
Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, May 12
Keeping in view an urgent need to develop a suitable male contraceptive, Reversible Inhibition of Sperm under Guidance (RISUG), has recently been developed at IIT (Delhi).

RISUG is an injectable compound that partially blocks the tubes that carry sperm in male reproductive organ, providing effective contraception for many years.

This medicine is a combination of Styrene Maleic Anhydride (SMA) and Dimethyl Suphoxide (DMSO). It is effective, has few side effects and proved to be reversible, when required. This is by far the fastest acting of the potential male contraceptives than vasectomy, which can take upto three months to become fully effective.

Giving details about the medicine, Dr S.K.Guha, professor (retired) of Biomedical Engineering at IIT Kharakpur, delivered a guest lecture on the recently-developed novel ‘male contraceptive at DMC’, yesterday.

Till now, this contraceptive has completed phase I and II clinical trials in India. The first clinical trial of RISUG was made in the year 1993.The men who participated in that first trial have had RISUG implanted for 15 years with no side-effects and complications.

The second phase clinical trial was carried out in the year 1997, where volunteers have been using RISUG for more than ten years.

The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), announced of resuming third phase trials of RISUG at four centres in India in 2006, which has led to renewed interest in RISUG among the medical fraternity.

The trial was launched yesterday, at DMCH, where professor of Pathology, Dr B.S.Shah, was principal investigator and Dr Baldev Singh Aulakh and Dr Sandeep Sharma were co-investigators.

According to Dr.Guha, RISUG has been patented in India, China, Bangladesh and the U.S. The major advantages of this process is that it is absolutely non-surgical, once it is refined and approved. Men can leave the hospital immediately after an injection and resume his normal activities.

SPORTS

Akhil’s century helps Ludhiana score 252 runs
Our Sports Reporter

Ludhiana, May 12
Powered by a fine century by Akhil Aggarwal (105), Ludhiana scored 252 runs against Bathinda on the opening day of the Punjab State Inter-District Cricket Tournament (u-17) for the ML Markan Trophy being played at the SD Government College ground, here, today.

In reply, Bathinda were 25 for no loss after 10 overs.

For Ludhiana other valuable scorers were Shivam Passi (33), Sanchit Gosain (44) and Rahul Singla (25).

Raj Kamal, Amrinder and Jatin captured two wickets each for Bathinda.

At draw of stumps, Bathinda’s Vikas Lamba and Rohit Jaitely were at the crease with 17 and 7 runs against their names.

For Ludhiana, Jayant bowled four overs and conceded six runs, while Rahul Singla gave away 18 runs in his spell of five overs.

Inter-class chess meet held
Our Sports Reporter

Ludhiana, May 12
An inter-class chess meet was held today at Bhartiya Vidya Mandir Senior Secondary School, Udham Singh Nagar branch, in which a large number of students of different age groups took part.

In the girl’s under-14 section, Lovina emerged as the winner while Rakhi secured the second position and Tanya was at the third spot.

In the under-17 group, Bhawna came out triumphant. The second and third positions were bagged by Richa and Bharti, respectively.

Jyoti Kalra got the better of her opponents to win the title in the under-19 section, while Khushboo Arora finished at the second spot. Neha secured the third position.

In the boy’s under-14 section, Sachin proved his mettle to secure the top honours. Rachit and Gourav finished second and third, respectively.

In the under-17 section, Hitesh bagged the title, while Tushar finished as runner-up. Rishi Batra came at the third position.

Mehakpal Singh got first position in the under-19 section. Varun Bhandari and Sourabh Goyal finished second and third, respectively.

Sunil Arora, principal of the school, gave away prizes to the winners.

Over 150 attend martial arts camp
Our sports reporter

Ludhiana, May 12
More than 150 students attended a one-day training camp of martial arts- Wing Tsun Kung- Fu, held at Sacred Heart Convent School, Chandigarh road, here yesterday.

The camp was organised by the Indian Martial Arts Association in order to train boys and girls.

The basic aim of the camp was to apprise the students with martial art and depict it as being different from karate and tae-ke-wondo.

A four member team led by Sifu Daruisz Gradowski, a 4th level master of Wing Tsun from Poland supervised the camp. He was assisted by Radek, Jastina and Kasia.

Earlier, Rev Flowerlet, principal of the school inaugurated the camp.

Om Parkash, president of the organising association, said after such camps-cum-training schedules would be arranged towards the end of this year.