HEALTH

Sahayta to observe Cancer Day
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 14
Cancer Sahyog, a city-based social service organisation, in collaboration with the International Confederation of Childhood Cancer Parent Organisation (ICCCPO) will be observing International Childhood Cancer Day in the city tomorrow.

Ms Neeru Nanda, Adviser to the UT Administrator, will flag off a rally of schoolchildren from the Advanced Pediatric Centre, PGI. The rally is aimed at creating awareness among public about childhood cancer.

Ms Nanda will also give away prizes to those cancer-afflicted children who have won prizes during the past one month of drawing and painting competitions organised by sahayta for patients coming to the oncology unit of the APC. Gifts will be given to other children also. The “Gagan Toor” scholarship instituted by a mother in memory of her son who died of cancer will also be given to a needy child.

The function, which is primarily being sponsored by the State Bank of India, Vishnu Associates and Mrs Pooja Krishan, will be held at the APC auditorium, PGI, tomorrow.

The ICCCPO was founded in Spain in 1944 and has 48 member organisations in 43 countries. It represents families of children and social workers working to help children with cancer to get the best possible treatment and care.

SPORTS

9-year-old badminton sensation
Arvind Katyal

Chandigarh, January 14
Meet Akshit Mahajan, a nine-and-half-year-old budding shuttler from Panchkula who is presently the under-10 Haryana state champion. This class IV student of Hansraj Public school, Panchkula, has astonished all with his fine play. It might be the beginning of an era full of laurels for this youngster, who might mature into another Prakash Padukone or Gopichand for India.

Akshit took to badminton when he was just five years of age. Wall practice accompanied by shadow practice was all which he did on the badminton court, which he used to learn as part of game fundamentals in the Sector 7 Panchkula badminton hall from Mr Ravinder Kapoor. Akshit is performing well under his able guidance. Former badminton players, who from time to time gave useful tips to this talent of Panchkula, included D.K. Mukerjee, and T.P.S. Puri. Recently Akshit got the opportunity to get tips from Dronacharya Mohd Arif, current national coach who produced Gopichand. He was here recently for a conference.

His father Jatinder Mahajan, himself a badminton player, said his ward was shaping up well, but needed continuous confidence building doses from experts so that his morale remained intact. He said Askhit needed a lot of exposure to hone his skills.

Last year also, Akshit had created a flutter when he went down fighting his much senior in the final of the North Zone Tara Chand Memorial Cash Prize Badminton Meet held at Panchkula after a tough fight. His achievements during the past year included winning of the district championship and the inter-school badminton meet. Akshit said his school Principal Ms Rajni Thareja, had always encouraged him by honouring him on various occasions for bringing laurels to the school.

He daily goes to CL DAV Public School, Sector 11, Panchkula, for physical conditioning tips from V.K. Verma, SAI athletic coach, in the morning while in the afternoon he practises under coach Mr R. Kapoor for two hours. This year Askhit plans to make big in various national ranking tournaments including the All-India Krishna Khaitan Memorial Badminton Meet in Chennai.

ADMINISTRATION

Bansal demands White Paper from Admn
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 14
Mr Pawan Kumar Bansal, the local MP today asked the Chandigarh Administration to prepare a White Paper on its income and expenditure and place it before the public before toying with the idea of imposing any tax on city residents.

Addressing a gathering at a function organised by the Mani Majra Block Congress to felicitate new councillors of the party, Mr Bansal regretted that the Administration was at times not able to spend the money given to it by the Union Government. He said if the people were convinced that there was need to levy any tax, they would not hesitate to pay it.

Mr Bansal revealed that Chandigarh Circle was the collecting the maximum income tax. He said even bigger cities like Ludhiana, where a large number of industrialists lived, did not pay so much as residents of Chandigarh were paying.

He had a dig at the Administration when he said it had increased stamp duty on the pattern of Punjab. When the Punjab Government reduced it, the Admnistration did not reduce stamp duty in the city.

He said the Administration should not spend massive funds on functions organised by it where the Governor or senior officials presided. The money so saved should be spent on maintaining civic amenities in labour colonies He said the Administration had appealed to the people to conserve power, but had also introduced minimum electricity charges.

The MP told the gathering that he would pilot the cause of freedom of press in Parliament. He said he would like to change the Bill into a bill for right to information so that mediapersons could ask for any information.

Mr Surinder Singh, Senior Deputy Mayor, highlighted the problems faced by residents of Mani Majra. He told Mr Bansal that Congress councillors would do everything to get demands of residents accepted by the corporation. He brought to the notice of Mr Bansal that some residents had constructed their houses more than 50 years back when no building plans were required to be approved. Now some of the houses were being demolished by the Corporation on the plea of violating the building byelaws

Prominent among others who spoke on the occasion were the Mayor, Ms Lalit Joshi, and the President of the Chandigarh Territorial Congress. Mr Bansal also announced a grant of Rs 2 lakh out of his MPs development funds for the development of a park in Sector 23.